73 Degrees and Autumn-y

The air has an autumn glow about it this afternoon, so I took the kids outside to play. Normally I'd send them out, but today I went with them. I walked until I was winded, then came back in. That didn't take long, since I'm out of shape and recovering from respiratory crud, but it felt (and smelled) so good to be out there!

This has been a modestly productive week so far. We're plugging away at chores, school, and a bunch of desk work I'd been putting off forever. It feels really good to be getting back into the swing of things again. I have no doubt that we'll be doing great by Thanksgiving, and will hate to take a break from school at that time. Maybe we won't this year. We'll see.

Jonathan had a monumental day today. He and I discussed Michael Pearl's wisdom regarding 7 year olds:

"By the time a child reaches seven, he should be making your life easier. A house full of seven-year-olds ought to be self-sustaining."

I explained that we'd been putting off this expectation in his case, trying to make allowances for his unique challenges. But since I thought Jon was reasonably prepared and he was sure of it, we made some changes in his life. Today we updated his chore list, passed on a couple of his chores to Mike and Grace, and put him on the payroll. That's a huge deal at our house. He now earns $1/week per year of age. He gets a check, from which "taxes" have been deducted. He tithes on the gross amount, saves, and uses his spending money to cover everything except toiletry items, curriculum, and groceries. I've also explained to him that if he wants to continue wearing diapers, he can buy those himself. BIG decision time for Jon! Yes, he'll be able to afford that if he chooses. He'll also have to buy his own clothes. I have a feeling this may cut down on his urge to destroy his clothing, though it won't surprise me if he has to buy a few items before he gets it.

True to form, he's had a challenging day since then. No meltdowns, just a lot of whimpering and complaining about silly things, and pretending to be confused about something quite ridiculous. At the end of the day, though, I think we'll come through it all right.