A while back Max said he wanted to cook a meal for the whole family. I was excited, and said we’d do that in December (which I hope is just going to be fantastic!). Friday I asked him what meal he should cook, and things went downhill from there. He said he must be the family slave! I told him he does a lot for the family but if anyone was the family slave it was me, and then I listed several things I do for all of us. Now, he does do a lot, but family slave? Really? I was seething. I managed to keep my cool, though, and just told him to finish his breakfast. By the time we’d started school I’d figured out what I would do. I had him do all his school except English. Then I told him for the first part of his English lesson he’d have to write an essay on how he was the family slave, and that it had to be 1/2 a page long. This is what he wrote:
Max’s Essay
Prologe: I’m sorry that I griped this morning about me being the “family slave”.
I did it because that I do a lot of stuff. I vaccum, clean off EVERYBODY’S dishes after supper, and a lot of other stuff without pay. Aaaand, I never remember me wanting to serve the WHOLE FAMILY a meal. In return, here’s a little poem: “Mom’s a little bossy, daddy’s on a diet Jack has down-syndrome, but, you just have to get used to disapointment.”
I died laughing!! And then he started crying that I was laughing! He said it was a serious poem and yelled that he’d better just go up to his room for a while. I told him to be sure to close his door, and then I called Mom so she could laugh as hard as I had.
When he calmed down I told him the second part of his English was that he’d have to write a essay about how I am the family slave, and that it had to be at least as long as his essay.
You clean the toilet, help daddy, put the dishes in the dishwasher, fold the clothes, and make my lunch and supper. You also go get groceries, help me A LOT, and I can’t remember anything else. oh! waaaiiit a moment! forget I said* that. You also care for me and Jack.
*in this case, wrote
Yeah, that’s all I got! It was a good 5-6 lines shorter than his. So I assigned him another essay on how Daddy’s the family slave.
Daddy helps buy almost all of our electronics (XBMC, Minecraft, house appliances, e.t.c.), cares for Jack and me a lot too, cleans out the hot tub, fixes electronics, takes care of the family, serves the church, gives us gifts, lets us go out to eat, make pancake and waffles, told me that I could save up for minecraft, trys to be a fun dad, got the bus, bouht our house, lets me shoot my shot-gun, help mama, gos to work on time and doesn’t gripe, went to Columbia and Kuwait, and bouht the hottub.
We sure are getting a lot of mileage out of calling out for the family slave to do things around here these days :-)