Image from AntwerpenR on flickr
Sometimes chores are just plain dreary and overwhelming.
If you are willing to be a little silly, you can get through them with quickly and have fun doing it. Here is an example (originally posted on my old blog):
Once upon a time there was a mountain of clean, unfolded laundry on a bed, in a house, somewhere in the U.S.A. Sadly, that laundry pile was mine. And I was not extremely motivated to get rid of it. I just knew it had to be done.
My two little helpers (six and three at the time) were not very excited about the laundry mountain either (unless they were allowed to climb it!)
Now, I could just buckle down and say, “let’s put this laundry away,” but that would be boring. Don’t get me wrong, kids need to do chores without them being made into a game, but sometimes we need to have a little fun, right?!
So we decided to make a game of it. The two little helpers were now “delivery people”. For some reason, these delivery people spoke with English accents. They stood at the door and waited for instructions while I folded. The instructions would be something like, “Please take these to 2374 Kitchen Drawer”, or “2952 Brother’s Bed”
They ran and ran, delivering their packages quickly and efficiently.
Sometimes the boss (me) would find some shirts that were missed and would call the delivery person back stating that the people from 5273 Shirt Drawer were very upset because they had ordered 5 shirts and only received 4. The “deliverer” would then apologize profusely and hurry to said destination. Upon returning I would hear a full report of their encounter with those unhappy people from 5273 Shirt Drawer. Very entertaining!
I know this is ridiculously silly – but what fun we had. The kids laughed, made memories, and worked hard (they also think their mom is pretty cool). I folded and folded – but didn’t put too many clothes away – my delivery people did that for me 
My favorite part was when the kids started to make up some addresses of their own. The one, that made everyone giggle was, “2402 Daddy’s Undies” (Don’t forget to say it with an English accent) hee hee!
Of course this is very silly, but a handy tool for conquering the dreaded laundry mountain. It worked for us!
Do you have any tricks for making chores fun?
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Very silly and that is why it’s so great! I am visiting from the SITS forum. Great simple design. Really love the lavender header.
Thank you Kristin.
I wish I was that creative!!! This is a great post Stacey. I really think my 3 and 5 year olds would get a kick out of this because they have to put their own laundry away anyway. What a nice idea!
My kids were close to those ages when we did it and they loved it. I don’t know where the idea came from! Just glad it showed up when I needed something to help with that horrible mound of laundry.
We make everything a race. My 8 year old son likes to race at every opportunity. So we race to put up our clothes. I’ll vacuum and he’ll dust. Who can do it faster???? The more he wins, the more he’ll do. It works most of the time.
It’s great that your son is so motivated by racing! If he does more when he wins…I’d be letting him win all the time!
I don’t have children, but when I used to babysit we’d turn picking up toys into making “Monster Soup” . . . the toybox was the soup-pot, and every time we put a toy in we’d say (in an English accent too!) how tasty the doll, or the bear, or whatever would make the soup.