Room Racing

Tonight after noticing that every bedroom in the house was super-messy, I came up with a new game to help us foster better cleaning habits.  We called everyone into the living room and layed down the ground rules.  Everyone's in charge of their own bedroom (except just Glen did the master and I cleaned the baby's room.)  First, we took a tour through the house to show it was going to be a tough chore for everyone and the reward would be a handful of chocolate chips.  (For Izzy's sake, no crying is allowed or it's straight to bed and that means you can't win.)  We started in the living room with "On your marks, Get set, Go!"  It was a close race but Izzy and Alex won (even though Izzy did most of the work, but Alex did pretty well with the constant reminder of "Do you want some candy?")  And then everyone got 2 chocolate chips for finishing the race (to help prevent the 'if I'm not going to win, I may as well not try' attitude.)  Tonight was a hit but that's not all.  Tomorrow the plan is to randomly call out "Room Race" and whoever finishes their room first gets the candy reward.  We discussed tonight ways it would be easier to win--just clean up after yourself.  Eventually we'll have random room races with all the chores and the house should be staying spotless???  Well we'll see about that one.=)  I have to remind myself that living life is messy and a little bit is o.k., but if we create good habits now ...