Tom Sawyer

As soon as I open the washing machine, I hear an enthusiastic flutter of toddler feet, then find two extra hands grabbing and shoving clothes into the washer. I now spend half of my effort removing the wrong clothes and simultaneously tricking Helena into thinking she is helping me. I watch her fascination with my work and eagerness to take part in it, the laundry, a job I tend to avoid as long as possible. Why do I hate it so much?

I'm not alone in a desire to shirk my work. Recently in the car we listened to chapter two of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain, Mark//Mark Twain Library), where Tom tricks his friends into paying him for the privilege of whitewashing his fence. Afterwards, Twain writes:

If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is OBLIGED to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Obligation as a motive for doing something seems closely related to resentment and procrastination. My children definitely grumble and postpone their work when I assign them chores, yet when they decide to surprise me by cleaning up the house, they work cheerfully and quickly. This principle seems true even when I am the one making myself do the work. A pile of clothes to fold sometimes seems an insurmountable obstacle: couldn't I just bake a cake instead?

Synonyms for obliged include "forced, required, bound, compelled, obligated, duty-bound, under an obligation, under compulsion, without any option" (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/). I can't think of a time in my life when someone actually forced me to do anything, so for me, being obliged to do something is not a real situation but a feeling, and the synonym "duty-bound" best reflects this. When I act out of duty, I don't feel joy in the results of my labor. Instead I feel relief that I can cross something off the to-do list. How can I transcend duty? How can I help my children do the same?

I have not arrived at a perfect solution, but this year I have seen some changes in my family as I have tried to make it more of a team effort than an individual pursuit. We all take our separate positions cleaning the kitchen after a meal, set a timer, and see if we can complete the job in 15 or 20 minutes. When we all work together, jobs become shorter, and the effort to beat the clock adds interest. Our clean clothes pile has become a mountain lately, so the past few weeks we have had a "folding laundry party" a couple of evenings a week. We pile the clean clothes on my bed and everyone finds, folds, and puts away their own clothes as quickly as possible, then helps with towels and the baby clothes. Because the results of cleaning are so short-lived and relentless, I have always had a difficulty feeling entirely satisfied after doing a job. Enlisting my family's aid, then talking and laughing together throughout a job makes the process fun and the completion soon. Mary Poppins spoke truly when she sang, "In every job that must be done there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap, the job's a game."

Cleaning rooms, making beds, and getting dressed in clean clothes in the morning have been habits I've struggled with helping my children develop. Then my sister Johanna told me what she does, I stole her idea, and now I am finding success with telling everyone that I would love the whole family to join me for a home-cooked breakfast as soon as they have those tasks completed.

As a child, I thought Tom Sawyer successfully tricked his friends into doing his work, but it's not that simple. They had fun whitewashing his fence. Working cooperatively, finding success in the results, and  taking well-deserved rest at the end of a task can help anyone develop the ability to feel self-motivated and enjoy a task instead of feeling obliged to do it. Even me.

A Cake on a Pedestal

I inhaled a sweet lemon-coconut-butter scent as I opened the oven door. Golden brown, risen to the top of the bundt pan, the cake seemed perfect to me as I poked a skewer in the middle to see if it was done. Only a couple of crumbs clung to the skewer--done but not overbaked to the point of dryness. As I placed it on a cooling rack, I thought with anticipation of the gorgeous and delicious cake I would be taking to the reception after my children's piano recital later in the afternoon.

After mixing together powdered sugar and lemon juice for a glaze, I prepared to flip the cake onto a cooling rack. It's easy: simply put the rack on top of the pan, then flip in one motion while holding everything together. I've done it hundreds of times. But this time partway through the turn, the pan slid and the cake slipped, disintegrating into a pile of crumbs on the counter. I desperately tried to retrieve at least a portion of the cake until I noticed that the biggest chunk was only as big as about two pieces of cake. The cake definitely had a delicate, tender crumb.

Crackers and cheese were now the only food I had to take to the recital. My children didn't mind. Within two minutes all six of them were shouting with glee as they descended on the cake like vultures, tearing off bits, pouring glaze over the crumbs, and devouring all of it.

I went outside to help Eric with the yard work. He had no sympathy either. "Good," he said. "You don't need everything to be perfect."

My life in my mind is fully organized, never running late, as perfect as a centerpiece cake, beautifully building expectation until the moment when it is cut with ceremony and delicately eaten with forks and china. My real life consists mainly of cakes so delicate they become a pile of crumbs on contact, then get shoved greedily but joyfully into six mouths followed by twelve feet smashing crumbs and tracking sticky glaze across my kitchen floor that I have to mop up one hour later, two hours later, and the next morning. Today I can't help thinking, though, that the unveiled enthusiasm of that moment is a life I should cherish in my mind because a cake on a pedestal will never match it.

Scrubbing Dishes to Music

Computer-generated music sounds flat compared to music performed by people. While free from error, it lacks the variation and interpretation that is the foundation of artistry. The capacity to make mistakes and the capacity for excellence are linked, in my opinion. Since I am grateful for one, I must also be grateful for the other.

Last night we didn't have dinner as a family. A salesperson came over right at dinner time, disrupting our normal routine. It wasn't until I woke up this morning that I realized we never did dishes last night. Right now my kitchen has dirty dishes from yesterday evening and this morning that I am going to wash as soon as I finish typing. While I feel inadequate and that I have failed on my habit-making resolution, I am glad of the reminder that I am human. My mistakes might be my road to excellence if I persist, stronger in my resolve as a result.

I will listen to music as I scrub, realizing that while life frequently seems far too full of the mundane, we can hear the sublime instead if we are listening.

Mud Pies and Other Messes

"Can I make a Mississippi Mud Pie?" asked Tommy (10), inspired by the recipe in his Christmas gift, The Boys' Book of Greatness. Already in the kitchen chopping celery, carrots, and onion for a Bolognese sauce, I readily granted permission. So he began to cook alongside me, asking for my assistance in finding springform pans, getting chocolate from the garage, and melting the chocolate in the microwave. I multitasked in the absentminded manner I have when I'm both cooking dinner and calculating mentally exactly how much time I have left in my afternoon and which half of the things I originally planned on doing will actually fit in the next two hours.

With the sauce simmering, I started accompanying Karina on the piano as she practiced singing. Her voice inched higher in her warm up exercises and I congratulated myself that I had left enough time to practice with her before we left for ballroom dance. Then I heard a yell.

"Mom! The pan's leaking!"

I ran into the kitchen. Runny chocolate batter seeped from the pan onto the counter, dotted the oven floor, rack, and door, and trailed around the kitchen island in a nearly complete oval. I sighed as I stared at the mess. The destruction of my afternoon plans, my kitchen, and my equanimity must have shown on my face because Tommy asked, "Mom? Are you mad?'

"No. I'm just trying to decide what to do."

I have heard that all springform pans leak. This may be true, but mine has been bent out of shape enough that instead of a drip, it flowed freely.

"I'll move it to a new pan," I said, pouring the batter into a bowl and scraping the remnants of the graham cracker crust, now mixed with chocolate, into a tart pan, "you clean up the floor."

Life is messy. This has been on my mind recently, ever since I read The 10 Commitments: Parenting with Purpose by Chick Moorman. He outlines ten aspects of parenting, suggesting that parents congratulate themselves where they are already successful and improve in the areas where they are less than stellar. I knew I had found one of my weaknesses with the very first one: "I commit to remembering that experience can be messy."

He continues, "I accept that sand, mud, food, paint, cooking, eating, relationships, emotions, and social interactions can be messy. I allow my children to learn from making messes and the cleanup that follows. I recognize that experience can be messy."

"The cleanup that follows"--four words I cannot get out of my head. In my household, the making messes half of the commitment reigns. Crafts, books, food, clothes, papers, and toys get spread everywhere. I have failed to assist my children in developing the good habit of cleaning up after themselves, taking responsibility for the messes they make. They constantly walk away from messes, completely oblivious to the chaos trailing behind.

Establishing good habits, especially neatness and everyone cleaning up after themselves, is my main focus right now. Comparing habit to a train track that enables our life to run smoothly, the educator Charlotte Mason wrote, "it rests with parents and teachers to lay down lines of habit on which the life of the child may run henceforth with little jolting or miscarriage, and may advance in the right direction with the minimum of effort" (Mason, Home Education, 119).

How I would love to have a household where the trains of all our lives can progress steadily along the track of good habits! I suspect that the problem is my inconsistency in demanding cleanup after every mess. Charlotte Mason explained how the failure to be perfectly consistent is the major pitfall mothers have in helping their children develop good habits. She wrote that sometimes a mother thinks a child should be rewarded after forming a habit, so she gives him "a little relaxation" without continuing to enforce it, "and then go on again. But it is not going on; it is beginning again, and beginning in the face of obstacles. The 'little relaxation' she allowed her child meant the forming of another contrary habit, which must be overcome before the child gets back to where he was before" (Mason 121).

My greatest failing may be that I not only grant my children a little relaxation, but myself as well. I need to set the example of cleanliness I want my children to follow, and it will only happen if I make a continual effort. Suzuki said, "You don't have to practice every day--only on the days you eat." Cleaning up needs to be practiced every day until it is as habitual as eating.

In the Suzuki Method, students develop a repertoire as they continue to review old pieces even as new ones are learned. Through repetition, learning continues. I think this relates to everything we learn, so this year, I hope to teach my family and myself at least one new habit each month, and then maintain it the next month as we begin a new one. Even though I'm not sure how far we can take this or how many habits we can develop and keep up, I'll continue trying.

It's embarassing to admit my faults. I almost feel like I should title this entry, "Confessions of a Messy Housewife" because I do struggle with such basic, mundane things. My habits for January have been to wash every dirty dish in the house before going to bed at night and to do all the laundry on Monday and Thursday. My children are learning, too, as Tommy did when he mopped up the chocolate under my supervision while the Mississippi Mud Pie baked in a new, one-piece pan. Now on day 24, I have plugged away at the dishes every night, even when I didn't want to, because of my conviction that even one lapse could make the track of habit I am laying get derailed. However, I will keep in mind if I do miss a day that repairs are always possible, that laying new track may be a step back, but it works.