I have hired help

Well, sort of.

It's Mark.

All of the materialistic tendencies that Braeden and Emma didn't end up with were saved and intensified for Mark.  Braeden and Emma shrug when I ask them what they want for Christmas.  Mark handed me a complex list.

Every time we go to the store there are things he wants to buy.  He puts things in my Amazon cart.  For a while he kept devising schemes to use his allowance before he actually had it.  I've put an Absolutely Not stamp on that practice so his next proposal was to work for money.  He presented Adam and me with his plan.  He would do all of the dishes for a dollar a day.  I didn't think it was a good idea...figuring I'd be doing the bulk of the work still.  Adam thought we should encourage him in his effort to actually earn money rather than swindle us.

I'm also sick, so I agreed.

Monday morning he enthusiastically donned yellow latex gloves and said he was going to do the dishes.  I went upstairs.  He came up and told me he was done.  "With everything?" I asked.

"Everything," he confirmed.

Since it isn't my first rodeo, I asked, "Did you wipe everything off?"

"Um..." he faltered, "Did I have to do that?"

"Yes," I said.  So we went downstairs and checked his work.

He had emptied the dishwasher and that was it.  There were still cereal bowls and leftover Sunday night snack dishes in the sink (we don't really have dinner on Sunday night to the weekly dismay of a certain teenage boy).

So there's a bit of a learning curve.  Like yesterday when I taught him to use hot water rather than cold when hand washing the dishes.  (Details details.)

Looking forward to him actually getting good at doing the dishes.  He certainly has the enthusiasm and motivation which is half the battle.