My Own Little Sweatshop

Yesterday was a very long day. We were up at 5:30am to get ready to go to the temple. We took our children over to my friend's house where they stayed for 6 1/2 hours. We came home and had two hours until that same friend brought her children to my house for another 7 hours while they went to the temple.


I'll be honest. I was not looking forward to my babysitting shift. My children got up a lot earlier than they usually do (they get a tad bit whiny when they get up too early) and when The Three Amigos spend too much time with the Morty children they tend to fight like siblings. Oh, and there are 6 of them, all 7 and under!


Well, it was actually a fairly pleasant experience. They played pretty well, and they all ate their dinner. Even Little Girl Morty that said, "Gross!" while I was cooking, asked for seconds.


At one point later in the evening I could see that the sweet children were turning a little sour. I knew I had to come up with something for them to do, quick. I remembered the jar of coins on my dresser that El Guapo has been filling to feed his soda habit.


"I will give you all a penny for every toy you pick up." I announced. They all went to work. It was done so quickly, and well enough that I was able to vacuum the living room and playroom, that I had to find more for them to do. I decided to have them clean windows and dust my shelves. They loved this idea, but probably not as much as I did. :)






All of this cleaning, and it cost me less than three dollars!


There was only one fight during all of the cleaning.
And only one timeout the whole evening. (Only one of these boys was in time-out, the other was keeping him company!)
My floor is vacuumed, and while my windows may not be very clean and my house wreaks of Windex, I think it was a very productive day!