Wednesday, March 6, 2019

16 Tasks With Which I Could Use the Assistance of Friendly Woodland Creatures

I've been thinking lately about Snow White and how she had those woodland animals to help her clean the dwarves' man cave. How exactly does that work? Specifically, how does one get in on that deal? Because I'm interested.

Are there requirements for getting your own woodland helpers, like frequently breaking into song or having a waist the size of your neck?

Do you absolutely have to be a princess, or is it kind of like how colleges prefer 4 years of a foreign language in high school but it's not a hard-and-fast rule?

As you can see, I don't have all the details figured out, but I do have this list of tasks with which I'd like the help of woodland creatures, if that's an available option for people with normal-sized eyes and a realistic amount of volume in their hair.

Help with routine cleaning would of course be appreciated, but what I'm really looking for is someone to lend a hand/paw/hoof/wing with the more unpleasant parts of my job.

Ideally, I seek a woodland creature(s) with expertise in the following areas:

• Meal planning, shopping, and cooking. Be advised, when I ask my family what they want to eat, they either ignore me completely or yell out helpful suggestions such as "Food!"

• Putting my children to bed in a loving, patient manner. If you enjoy reading poorly-written books about talking vehicles, answering an infinite number of questions on how the dinosaurs died, and listening to long stories about video games and/or lists of shark facts, this is definitely the job for you.

• Straining human waste out of the bathtub and occasionally fishing cars, Barbies, and stuffed animals out of the toilet. Familiarity with the plunger is a must.

• Playing Candyland.

• School drop-off and pick-up. Must also be interested shuttling kids to 50 after-school activities and be available for the nine-to-midnight shift of grumpily sitting in the car texting a 14-year-old, "I'm tired. Let's go."

• Everything related to the trash can, including rifling around inside for the $140 retainer my middle-schooler thinks is in there but isn't completely sure.

• Homework help with mathematical concepts that haven't even crossed my mind in 27 years.

• Entertaining young children for 30 minutes with tongue depressors and the Chapstick in my purse when there are no toys in the exam room.

• Listening to excessively loud renditions of "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells" on repeat regardless of the season.

• Arguing about whether an 11-degree day is too cold for shorts.

• Restroom-related functions like wiping butts and taking preschoolers to port-a-potties. (A friend of mine reports having had to literally pull poop out of her constipated sons, which I've never had to do but if it became necessary I'd absolutely like a woodland creature to do that.)

• Matching toddler socks and buckling a 15-million point harness multiple times per day.

• Attempting to reason with a small person who thinks a computer is called a "pooter" and cannot pronounce his own first name.

• Sniffing pairs of floor underwear to assess level of cleanliness. Must act like this is totally normal and not a waste of a bachelor's degree.

• Taking off all the kids' snow gear 8 seconds after putting it on so they can go to the bathroom.

• Fielding snack requests that occur within 2 minutes of the end of a meal. Also, snack requests from people who are currently eating a snack.

As I write this I'm getting increasingly excited about the prospect of getting some outside help with the more challenging parts of my job, and now I have to go figure out where to post this ad. (In the woods, I guess? Maybe I should start singing to attract applicants?)

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Anonymous said...

We have 6 kids as well and I was tired of doing all of the meal planning/cooking by myself, serving the meal and hearing complaints. I finally had enough. Now each kid and my husband have 1 dinner a week that they are in charge of. When I make the grocery list they must give me a main dish, fruit and veggie selection. Then on their designated night the bigger kids and dad make their dinners and the littler kids help me make theirs. We pick nights based on scheduling, so my young woman isn't making it on mutual night, for example. Then everyone has one meal a week that they love and so much stress off of me! Plus they're learning to cook the foods they love so they're better prepared to move out some day.

Unknown said...

In a way you are almost there. After all you live in the woods with 6 creatures!! Sure wish I would have thought of the idea of assigning each kid a dinner night when my children were at home. I always blame them for the fact that I'm not a good cook. I kept eliminating meals that someone would say they hated and pretty soon there wasn't that many choices. Though I'm sure there's a break down in the logic there somewhere

Jenny Evans said...

I basically love this idea. Not sure I could make it work during the school year but for sure in the summer!

Last summer I had the two oldest kids do dinner once a week. They had to make their own shopping list and accompany me grocery shopping. I sent them off with a basket to find their own stuff and they met me at the register so I could pay for everything.

Jenny Evans said...

Nope, sounds about right! We have at least one kid choosing to go hungry every night because they don't like what's for dinner. As long as we try to make sure it's not the same kid every night, we figure that's good enough.