This post could make you feel like a Superhero Mama in Clark Kent clothes (OK – Clark Kent clothes with a bit of spit-up on them. Who’s looking THAT closely?) because this post is filled to the brim with advice about how to make your homeschooled kids clean up.

(Or at least there is one piece of advice somewhere in this post. I hope you can find it. While you’re looking, have you seen any pencils? We lost all of ours so it’s becoming harder to do our math.)

We moms sit on the floor, despair weighing us down as the kids fly paper airplanes around us, laughing, and the dog follows. We had a great day, yes. The homeschooling party is over for the day, yes. Mom is exhausted and she can’t even find a few inches of kitchen space to drag out the carrots to chop for dinner tonight.

HOW do you make the little rascals clean up???

This was the subject of many years of my careful research. I scoured homeschooling stores and dumped piles of regular dollars in exchange for a few cheaply printed “Mom Dollars” linked to “rewards that all children love,” believing the promise that THIS TIME, they will clean up.

It all failed.

In fact, sensing an inner weakness with their sixth sense (the one only accessible to children), one child purposely hid random items all over the house because “It was easier than putting it away,” she confessed, eyes downcast.

They are purposely trying to wear you down.

Don’t let them.

I printed this small quip that my brain construed one random Wednesday evening. And the sign stuck. And it worked. Voila!

For the price of – well, nothing, really – you can make your Grade 4 student practice their cursive and you’re got a sign too! But here it is – the magic formula…. Drum roll, please…

A touch of brilliance if I may say so, however immodestly. No eating until there is enough tidying that at least one clean bowl surfaces. AND since they EAT, and since the sign is staring you in the face AS you serve the food, you remember to enforce this new “homeschooling rule,” so Voila! Magic!

Notice the algebraic ORDER of things. FIRST clean up. THEN face stuffing.

The homeschool magic key unlocking every child’s inner Mr. Clean has arrived! You don’t eat until you’ve dumped a dozen or so shovelfuls of horse manure outside.

That would be if you were a farmer.

In our case, it is partially used math supplies and dirty cups with unfinished, carefully measured daily water allocation goals for each child. But you get the point.

And yes, I am aware that the phrasing implies that we are knee-deep in moldy, forgotten science experiments and half-finished math pages strewn about when it says “Clean up the place.” Duh – we are.

Also, I am aware that the words “stuff your face” don’t exactly imply dinner manners appropriate for Ms. Lovelybottom’s approval (I’ll explain her someday too since I have already told you other embarrassing stuff and you still like me).

The point is, the cleanup gets done. I can sit at the table with my feet up, sip a lemonade, watch them work, and realize that actually, I am doing a good job. Everyone is happy. Even, and especially, me.

For a few minutes at least.

But who’s counting?

And if it takes a ridiculous sign to make it through another week, another year? Well, print away, dear homeschooling parent.

So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop . . . The Message

We take a little homeschool bliss where we can get it.

At least we’ve got our priorities in the right order.

A clean house is overrated, anyway.