Monday, November 12, 2012

Morning Chores/Morgenaufgaben



 
 
We had a beautiful sunrise this morning! I thought I would write something briefly about morning chores in our house because it's too late for a longer learning post. How do we start our day? Since there are only two bathrooms, people use them at different times in the mornings, starting at 6:00 a.m. Each child also needs to do some stretching exercises, get dressed, make his or her bed, and do a morning offering plus some devotional reading. They also have to air their bedrooms (I know, very German). Then it's time for breakfast, each child puts his or her own dishes away and clears his or her place. Then it's time for "real" chores. Jonathan needs to clean the sink and mirrors in the bathroom upstairs and sweep the floor. Charlotte does the same downstairs. Miriam has to empty some trash and clean the mirrors in the master bedroom. She also checks our little house altar to see if it needs any attention, e.g. dusting or getting new flowers. Veronika and Flora also empty some other trash cans and then sweep the entrance way, which includes shaking out the doormat and rug. Here you can see them shaking out the rug. Please ignore the shoes! Veronika is wearing Miriam's sneakers (they are too big, but she couldn't find her shoes) and Flora is wearing slippers. They were singing a lantern song in German and I thought it was so cute so I didn't interrupt them to ask about their shoes. They didn't get the tune quite right in their repetition of the song, but it was still pleasant. Then we are ready to start the day with prayer and circle time. Do you have any similar distribution of chores or rituals?

Heute morgen hatten wir einen wunderschönen Sonnenaufgang. Ich habe mir gedacht, ich schreibe mal etwas über unsere Morgenaufgaben, da es schon zu spät für einen "Lernbericht" ist. Wie fangen wir unseren Tag an? Da wir nur zwei Badezimmer haben, werden sie von verschiedenen Leuten zu verschiedenen Zeiten benutzt. Der erste ist um 6.00 Uhr dran. Jedes Kind muß anschließend ein paar Gymnastikübungen machen, sich anziehen, das eigene Bett machen, ein Morgengebet beten und meist etwas Religiöses lesen. Die Schlafzimmer werden natürlich auch gelüftet. Dann gibt es Frühstück, man muß sein Geschirr in die Spülmaschine räumen und den eigenen Platz am Tisch aufräumen. Danach kommen die echten Haushaltspfilchten dran. Jonathan muß das Waschbecken und den Spiegel im Badezimmer oben putzen, danach fegt er das Bad. Charlotte macht das Gleiche unten. Miriam muß einige Papierkörbe leeren und die Spiegel im Elternschlafzimmer (die Spiegel sind Teil der Einbauschränke dort) putzen und nachschauen, ob der kleine Hausaltar in Ordnung ist. Sonst wischt sie dort Staub oder besorgt frische Blumen. Veronika und Flora müssen auch Papierkörbe und Mülleimer leeren. Dazu kommt noch das Fegen im Eingangsbereich bei der Haustür. Sie schütteln auch immer den Fußabtreter und den kleinen Teppich dort aus. Heute haben sie dabei ein Laternenlied gesungen. Die Wiederholung des Liedes stimmt von der Melodie nicht ganz, aber es klingt trotzdem noch wie ein Lied. Bitte die Schuhe der beiden Sängerinnen nicht beachten: Veronika trägt Miriams Schuhe, da sie ihre nicht finden konnte (viel zu groß!) und Flora ist mit Hausschuhen rausgelaufen. Ich wollte das Singen jedoch nicht unterbrechen, nur weil sie die falschen Schuhe anhatten. Vielleicht will der einen oder andere Leser (oder die eine oder andere Leserin) auch mir seine (ihre) Morgenroutine verraten. 

 



   


8 comments:

  1. Danke für den Einblick! Ich erfahre auch immer gerne wieder, wie es in anderen Familien abläuft. Hoffentlich komme ich bald dazu, dir zu erzählen wie die Morgenroutine bei uns ist.

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    1. Unsere Morgenroutine hat sich im Laufe der Jahre immer wieder geändert. Als die Kinder noch kleiner waren, haben wir das Ganze viel Entspannter gemacht, doch jetzt muß ich mir genau überlegen, wie ich die Zeit am besten einteile, damit wir auch alles schaffen, was wir schaffen müssen.

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  2. Beautiful sunrise quite breathtaking. We are slowly working on a regular chore rythm but we do air the beds and the bedrooms!

    Cute pic of veronika and flora

    San oxox

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    1. Maybe airing the house is simply European? Here are many hotels and buildings where you can't open windows anymore. It really annoys me. I'm also quite unhappy with the American way of heating in the winter: blowing hot air through the rooms, but it still stays cold. It's also really bad for dust allergies.

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  3. hello eva, i love the movie with veronika and flora. they are so sweet! and your photo of the sunrise is lovely.

    isn't it awful not being able to open a window in modern american motels/hotels!!!!??? oh i do not like it at all. it's awful. we also use too many lights. (nyc is way too bright).

    my apartment complex uses baseboard heaters for the winter. they're easy to turn on and off, which i like.

    i haven't aired the bedrooms in the morning . . i guess i tend to air them at night, because we sleep with good blankets and i open them all. in the morning when i wake i open the curtains wider to let in the sunlight, and close the windows to warm things up.

    morning chores? greg and i are up first and we feed the animals and do the kitty litters . . then the girls get up and empty the dishwasher and vacuum the rugs in all the rooms . . not that there's really that many rooms! we eat together and then read or recite a poem . . i'll post it one day.

    thanks for sharing your morning! i was actually wondering what your morning was like just the other day :)

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    1. Thanks so much, we do get wonderful sunrises here in the cold months. The sun rises right above our neighbor's house each morning. All you need to do is step out of our front door.

      Yes, I don't like those modern buildings at all. Whenever we travel west to visit friends and family, we stay in a hotel, but we rarely find one where you can open windows. We also air our bedrooms at night briefly, but we don't leave the windows open over night in the winter because it is way too cold. In the summer they are open all the time.

      Your heaters sound much nicer than the forced heat here. I simply can't get used to it. My parents have underfloor radiant heating which is so nice!

      These days Peter and Jonathan are up first and let Julius out. Then it's mine and Charlotte's turn and the others follow soon. Peter makes breakfast right now (I do some prep for it at night). He needs to leave at 7:15 a.m. So he doesn't have breakfast with us. I used to read at breakfast for a while, but now I only read at lunch and dinner. Mornings don't work so well anymore. Do you really vacuum every day? That's rather impressive! Don't you walk Jack in the morning?

      Funny that you were wondering about our morning routine. Maybe I sensed that . . . I used to be able to tell who was on the phone when it rang, but somehow I can't do it anymore. (Only once in a while I still have a feeling who it might be).

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  4. We live in Australia so we open the windows most days to air the rooms, even on cold winter days, if it's sunny, we open the windows for a little while just to get some sweet freshness in. My children are terrified now I've read this post that their morning chores will increase!

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    1. Maybe Australia is still more like Europe! I'm sorry my post has this effect on your children :). It might make them happy, though, to contribute some valuable work to the smooth running of your household. If children see that their work makes a difference, they are normally quite proud. Do post about the new chores, I would love to read how it goes. I normally change chores every year, sometimes more often. But certain ones also stay the same.

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