Mood:  cheeky

OK men. I have tortured or made your wives torture you all week long, so now it's time for my answer to -

How do you divide up the work at home? Do you help out with housework?

We have a very unusual situation at our home. We run a mission to the low income housing area in our town, and we live in a house attached to the mission. So, we both work from home. And, not only that, but we also homeschool, so our children are always at home with us! Another interesting dynamic in our household is that we have two children that have sensory issues - one has been officially diagnosed with asperger's syndrome. A typical middle class home we are not! 

Having said that, Sarah's and my personalities are totally different than what you might expect. For example - Sarah likes to mow. It is her time to talk with God, so, although I enjoy it as well, she probably mows a little more than I do. I, on the other hand, don't mind doing laundry. It is kind of a challenge to me. Joshua, our aspy, showers and changes clothes two to three times a day. Sometimes he'll put on the same clothes, often not. Joshua, our youngest, has bladder problems. It's something that we have been to a specialist to see, but to no avail. He drinks a lot, and he wets a lot - even at night. So, we are often having to change the bed. A typical household with three active boys would have a ton of laundry on its own, but with the two problems I just mentioned, our laundry is enormous. I like the great feeling of having it all caught up (which doesn't happen too often).

Therefore, I would have to say that we split the outside tasks and the inside tasks pretty evenly. I do most of the homeschooling and help out inside. She probably does most of the inside, but enjoys working outside as well. Both of us don't do enough to plan our time wisely, but I am probably worse in that area. We tend to find other ministry or family things to do that are more pleasurable to us. We also need to train our boys to do more work around the house. We have focused so much on finding help for our special needs kids, that we have failed in training them to do the every day things that kids should be trained to do. We are getting better at that, but we still have a lot of work to do in that area. 

So, you see, we do have an unusual family. I'm sure that no one would say that their family is totally normal. There probably isn't really any cookie cutter households out there, but ours is pretty uncookiecutterish. Is that a word? Oh well, you get the picture! I guess you'd have to say, considering the topic for this week, that we have our work cut out for us !

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