Choosing A Weapon

A whistle? A pea shooter? Or a squirt gun?

We have a daily chart. This is designed to give the kids reference to what they are supposed to do every morning without my having to tell them 500 million times a week that they're supposed to be getting dressed and ready for school. The morning items are:

Get Dressed Including Shoes and Socks (because they'll entirely forget about the shoes and socks. Especially the socks.)
Eat Breakfast, Brush Teeth (I have to set a timer for breakfast or they'll sit there for 30 minutes and do nothing.)
Clean Room Up (I don't understand how they do this every day, and every day it's still a disaster)
Flush Toilet, Dirty Clothes (What do they have against flushing a toilet? Ewww!)
Lunch and Backpack (this one puts a big wrench in the morning...more on that in a minute)

The idea is that they get ONE (1) warning per item. After that, they lose their star. After that, they start accruing things like time outs, more chores to do later, etc. Stars earn chips, which earn quarters.

When they wake up in the morning - they NEVER take the initiative and start on their stuff. They lay around and do nothing until I say move. There is a strict No TV rule in the morning. So, it isn't like they get lost in cartoons or something. They simply lay around on the couch or the floor. George never puts his shoes on. I always have to remind him. I make them get dressed before they eat, because if they eat and then go upstairs, they're lost and I don't see them again. I think...that has solved the problem with the room cleaning too. All of that upstairs stuff has to be done before they get fed. Perfect.

That leads me to lunch. We are buying drinks, chips, sandwich stuff, string cheese, gogurts, granola bars, etc. All they have to do is grab, grab, grab - stick it in their lunch boxes, zip them up and toss them in their back packs. You'd think that was easy. Unfortunately, because they spend so much time screwing around - they always find themselves with no time left. Lunch at school is $2.50 per day. Am I crazy to think that's a lot? There are usually 2 or 3 choices, one always being yogurt and string cheese. George ALWAYS picks that one. $2.50 for a yogurt and string cheese? Rip. Off.

I think this is what's going to happen. First - I'm going to get them up at 6 am tomorrow. Maybe I'll go get one of those horns-in-a-can. That'll wake them up. Then I'm going to announce that they will not receive any breakfast until they have accomplished every other morning task on their charts. I think that sounds like fun. OR...if they screw around with their lunch, I'll make it for them. A piece of plain bread, a couple of carrots and some water. No snack. No fabulous peanut butter or tasty gogurts. OR....making the lunch gets shifted to the night before. We could just entirely eliminate it from the morning list altogether. I think I can figure out how to incorporate all three. I still want to get a whistle so I can use that to represent the One Warning. I'd love a pea shooter, so I could ping someone in the back of the neck when they're doddling their way up the stairs or rolling around on the floor instead of being productive. The squirt gun would be a great way to get people's attention. Don't you think??

Time for a family meeting, I suppose.

P.S. (sorry for originally posting this in the wrong place....dumb!!)