Side Effects May Include…

As jammed as my days are, you might wonder how the house and yard stay maintained. Well, a lot of the time, they don’t! I’ve already had one neighbor comment on the dead grass I can’t blame her – it does look bad and she’s newer to the area so never saw the dirt hillside I had when I bought the place.

Still, I do sometimes lean on the boys to help out.

This is not a worry free thing to do. I have to take into account the potential side effects of requesting help.
It’s either the delayed, exaggerated, dramatically done & MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGED efforts of the oldest. Or, it’s the eye rolling, utterly lazy, must be guided at every step “efforts” of the teen.
Oldest will eventually do an excellent job on his own once he gets around to starting. He will also make sure I see and hear him do it so that he can fish for the praise early & often.
Youngest will do a decent job once he stops grumbling. He will also follow instructions on how to do things (oldest does things his own way always). He doesn’t need follow up praise, but would rather we all just forget that he IS capable of helping 🙂 Still, if he can half-ass a task & get away with it, he most certainly will!

Of course, I’m always relieved/happy at the end to have the chores done, no matter what grief I may have to experience to get there. But, there are days, when I do think twice or three times about it!