Category Archives: training children

Soup Anyone?

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In my continuing effort to train my daughters to be homemakers someday I decided that they needed cooking lessons.

I realized that I do all of the food preparation around my house. Which is OK, however, my girls need to start taking over some of that responsibility. Especially my 8 and 9 year old. They are definitely old enough to help in the kitchen and to be able to prepare some basic meals. I have found too that they really enjoy being with me in the kitchen cooking. We get to spend time together, talk and learn. I have found that once I got over the fact that everything might be a bit slower at first (I can chop a pot of veggies by my self quicker than my two girls can together) I really enjoyed the time with my girls too. I think too that it gives them a sense of accomplishment. When dinner is on the table they have the pride of knowing that they helped.

So here is our cast of characters last night.

Very basic stuff.
But easy enough that everybody got to help.
 
 
Baby Boy Punk, on finding a kitchen full of women, wisely retreated to the living room to chew on a toy in quiet.
Punk #3 got to put the bullion cubes in the pot of water. 


Baby Girl Punk, well, she munched on crackers and felt like she was helping.

Punk #1 Got to chop the onion. And discovered the fine art of crying over a chopped onion!

Look at how good she is doing. I had been married about 5 years before I mastered the art of a well chopped onion, and she is doing it at 9!


Punk #2 peeled and chopped the carrots. She had a great time plopping them in the pot of boiling water with out splashing!


Here Punk #2 is chopping the potatoes. I as a general rule do not peel potatoes. I don’t like taking the time, and the peel is the most nutritious part of the whole potato! I don’t even peel them for mashed potatoes, unless I am wanting to be fancy.


And, last, but not least. Punk #3 stirring the soup, she also got to add all the spices.


Now, the kids wanted me to take a picture of the soup cooking, but the steam kept fogging up the lens, so you will just have to take my word for it when I say that it looked really, really yummy. Especially on a freezing cold day like it was yesterday. They were all very excited to tell Dad that they helped make soup!

 

Training them up right

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I firmly believe in training or teaching my son to grow up to be a man. I want him to be able to provide for a family, do hard physical labor, maintain car and houses. In general, I want him to be a manly man.

However

There are exceptions

I think my daughters should know how to mow a lawn and take care of finances.

On that same token, I think my boy should be able to help around the house.

And it is never to early to teach him the art of laundry.

Here is my boy. He is saying “Ooooo, Ooooo”
that is his favorite word.


“Oooo Ooooo wassat” (“whats that”….his second favorite word)


“Now son, that is a washing machine, a pretty shiny new one.”


“See all the clothes go round and round…..”
(at this moment I would like to take second and say a prayer of thanks, that I am in my warm house watching my laundry being cleaned, instead of down at the lake banging them against a rock)



“Whoa, stay focused buddy…focus, focus….I have more to teach you….”







And this is where he makes a quick exit……




So much for that lesson!

Creative Soultions

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My PIC is a smart, smart man. Sometime I forget that, especially when it comes to the kids. Friday is cleaning day around here, and everybody is expected to pitch in. It involves more than your basic picking up and making your bed. We dust, vacuum, change sheets, wash window seals, light switches, clean bathrooms, scrub toilets and tubs. My two oldest punks are in charge of their room and the basement, and any other jobs I need help with, but mainly their bedroom. Yesterday they basically fought and bickered the whole time. Punk #2 kept telling me she was finished, and when I would check, she was anything but finished! Punk #1 suddenly forgot how to make a bed, and couldn’t work with her little sister in the same room. ARGH!!! After fighting with them from 4:00 to about 10:00 I gave up and sent them to bed, with the promise it would be done in the morning. Well the morning came, and so did the bickering. I was at my wits end! I was laying in bed (trying to sleep in a little) and I could hear them in their basement bedroom fighting. Well PIC came up with a plan. He called the girls upstairs and found his duct tape. He taped them together! One arm and one leg, and told them that when the bedroom was clean and they stopped fighting they would be let loose. I thought he was a little nutty, I figured that they would fight even worse! It only took about 2 minutes, and they were laughing! Laughing! They were giggling and laughing trying to figure out how to walk down the stairs together. They went to their room and cleaning it in about 20 minuets, laughing and talking the whole time. I was surprised. Very, very surprised. My man is a smarty pants!

The Education of My Daughters

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My daughters are being educated. They go to school, get good grades, they can read and write and do math. Is that enough? They will go through public education, and possibly higher education, and by the worlds standards they will be “well educated”. Is that enough; is a good college education enough? It is highly valued, highly esteemed, and highly sought after, but is it enough? Is it even the best? We know what the world values, but what does God value? What type of education would he have us give to our daughters? I know the Lord Values education, he wants us to be well educated, and it is a good thing…but is it the best? Our daughters need to be educated in the art of keeping a home. Our schools have been washed clean of any gender specific instruction. They no longer teach our girls how to cook, clean and sew. I think that is entirely up to me. I need to teach my daughters how to be a wife and mother. It is so much easier to shoo them away when I am cooking, I am quicker and much more efficient on my own, but how does that teach my girls? It doesn’t. I think it is important that they know the basics, they need to be able to cook from scratch (it is cheaper and healthier) they need to be able to clean, organize, care for children and do basic sewing. They need to be able to run a home. They need to be able to make a home. They need to understand that no matter what the “world” says the womanly art of homemaking is a valuable and precious skill. They will learn these things at my side. They will not only learn the mechanics of these skills, they will learn to love them, and value them, and they will learn the importance of these skills. This means I need to take a deep breath, be patient, and dig deep on those trying days. I need to remember the big picture.