Not Exactly in a Good Mood Today

I am very, very tired. Mono relapse, perhaps? I don't know. I just know I want to go back to bed. I had coffee and I still want to go to bed.

This week we had the pipes cleared because they were backing up. We paid $106. Then, one of my kids put a bouncy ball in the bathtub and watched it go now the drain. It's stuck. The drain is completely blocked. We can't get it out. Grrr. Someone's lying about who did it. It was either M or Iz. Both say the other did it. Not Happy.

The schedule is going not so well. The stars aren't motivating at all. They are going to be mad when they find out that they didn't earn even 1/2 of their normal allowance this week. Here's what I've been doing:

I have a schedule that I made in Word. Everybody's on there. I print a new one for each day. I gave everybody jobs to do and their school work is on there, too. When they complete a job or school work, they get a star on the schedule (the original idea was that they do it on time, but so far that hasn't worked out so well). For M, 25 stars gets $1 allowance. If he did the minumim of what I ask him to do, he'd earn about $5/week. Ok, I realize that for today's standards, that might be kind of low, but we don't have a lot of money. Extra stars can be earned for extraordinary behavior. The younger kids' stars are worth less (based on age--they earn about 50 cents/ week per year: 10 years old= $5/week) because their jobs are easier and require less time and energy. So, at the end of the week, we count up the stars and dull out the cash. Iz earns M&Ms, since he will just loose the money and money doesn't mean much to him.