Yes, I did have children just so that I could make them work for me.

We have a new game at our house! I call it Sock Skating. I got the idea for this from a Flylady letter to her list, in which osmeone talked about using old socks to clean your kitchen floor.

I have quite the collection of old mismatched socks that I really need to get rid of, but haven't been able to make myself throw out. (Hey, why do you think I need Flylady, after all?) They came in handy though, for this game. I put old sock on the girls' feet and then dumped a couple of cups of water on the kitchen floor. The three of us (I had on old socks, too) then scuffed our feet around the floor in imitation of ice skating. The girls thought it was great and it did a pretty good job of getting the floor clean, too. Afterward I just mopped up the excess water.

I love anything that makes cleaning easier!

Michael got his first paycheck. It was only $54 so the withholding bit wasn't too bad. He cashed it before we knew he had it and took some of his friends out to dinner. I told him we're using the next one to open up a savings account for him. If he cashes all his checks all the money will disappear without him even knowing where it went.

Speaking of money and Michael, and on a somewhat depressing note, we caught Michael stealing from us. We have a jar of coins that we've been keeping on our dresser. Well, the other day the husband asked me where I'd put it. I hadn't seen it, although I'd noticed that morning that it was gone. I'd assumed the husband had done something with it. Since neither of us had, we assumed Arielle had climbed up and gotten it. She's obsessed with coins and thinks they make the best toys ever. Arielle looked blank, though, when we asked her about it. We asked Michael, then, but he said he hadn't seen it anywhere.

A couple of days later I went into Michael's room to do a bowl and silverware search and there was the coin jar, sitting in an open dresser drawer.

The upshot of all this is that he confessed when his dad confronted him, but was angry and defensive, blaming us for it (naturally.) Evidently he'd asked us for some money and we hadn't had that much cash on us. When he was told he'd have to wait he got angry and took the coin jar instead. His argument is that we're always saying we don't have money, but there was the coin jar, full of money! Obviously we were just being selfish, greedy and mean.

Of course, the coin jar had, at most, five or six dollars in it, as compared to the $15 to $20 amounts he asks for, or gets paid for doing things like mowing the lawn.

Here is where I take a break to hit my head against the wall, while chanting, "Grow up, grow up, grow up!"

So, I've hidden the coin jar for now. Michael has agreed to pay back what he took from it ($3 he says) We'll have to figure out how to keep this from happening again.

Drat that boy! I really wish he's stop destroying our trust in him.