Great Ideas

Last night I was amazed at how well my brain works when I actually get sleep.  After 6 hours of sleep every night last week, I took time yesterday after church to take a nap.  I think I was out for about 3.5 hours.  When I woke up, Cliff had already made dinner.  As we ate, my brain took its usual path towards all the things I need to get done.  The top two on my list were dishes and cleaning off the table.  (Usually our table is a depository of things that we haven't bothered to put away.)  Still a little bit groggy from napping, I told Cliff that if he put the dinner things away, I would do the dishes.  Then my brain started throwing out good ideas.

One of Elizabeth's jobs is emptying the dishwasher, but we haven't been asking her to do it much lately.  I put her to work again last night.  The Lexa wandered in and started helping.  She loves to take the dishes out and hand them to whoever is emptying.  That made it more fun for Elizabeth because she thinks whatever Lexa does is so cute.  Finally Catherine saw the other girls doing something without her and wanted to help, so I suggested she unload the top rack where Lexa can't reach. 

Watching the three of them work together was so gratifying that my brain threw out another idea.  How to get the table cleaned off.  I was dreading this because there were toys and books and papers and socks and DVDs and etc. all needing to be put away.  And usually when I use the words "clean up" there are groans and moaning and feet dragging.  So my brain came up with the words "secret missions" instead. 

I gave them each an item and whispered into their ear where it belonged.  Then they would run to put it away and hurry back for their next secret mission.  Even Catherine, who usually goes upstairs to put something away and doesn't come back, actually wanted more missions.  They were begging for more secret missions even after everything was put away.  So awesome.

Later on, Cliff came up with a brilliant solution to a problem that we'd been thinking about for a while.  Lexa is now sleeping in a toddler bed that she can easily get out of.  We've been worried that she'll fall down the stairs again or get into something in the night.  We didn't really want to shut the door to the girls' room since the others don't like the dark.  We bought a second baby gate to go across the top of the stairs, but Cliff suggested that we put it across the girls' bedroom door.  It's like the door is shut, but still open at the same time!  Brilliant!