Parents and Kids Swap Places!

Ella planned our family church service.

     Our kids are always kids of big ideas.  One day a recently they had the idea that we should all switch places for a day! We decided to do on the first Saturday of their spring break.  They wanted to trade personalities, too, but we thought that may become a recipe for hurt feelings, so we just traded roles.  We traded for a full 24 hours!

     Anneka officially switched with Nettie.  She wore one of Nettie's shirts and put on dangly earrings (which she is not normally allowed to wear! 😂).  Nettie had many tasks for Anneka, including editing a document that had been translated into English, writing in our English Club group, vacuuming rugs, sweeping, watering the plants, doing dishes, mopping the floor,  folding laundry, doing a devotional, and working out.  

     Both Ella and Ike cleaned out the ashes in the furnace.  (They took these pictures of each other). All three kids shared a lot of Leif and my roles for the day.  They took pictures of each other.  We didn't get a lot of photos throughout the day, because they didn't let us "kids" use the camera very often.  😉

Dumping Water onto the Ashes

     All three kids took turns transplanting tiny pepper and eggplant seedlings into cups so that they have more room to grow.

     Perhaps the kids' favorite part of the day was having us do all of their schoolwork!  They definitely do have a lot of work each day.  We appreciated how hard each other work from trading roles!

     Ella and Ike printed out doubles of all of their work so that both Leif and I could experience the work they do in a typical school day.  Nettie, Leif and I all shared Anneka's work.  She had special math problems set aside for each of us.  She really wanted me to make a box and whisker diagram.  I had no idea what this was, but thankfully the math book had an index and I was able to look up how to do one.  Nettie, Leif, and I also had to do the kids' chores and feed the animals.

  As "parents", the kids prepared three meals and cleaned up the kitchen afterward.  It was really sweet how they all worked together.  For dinner on Saturday, they decided to have a barbeque.  Ike lit this fire and roasted hotdogs all by himself.  Ella made pigs in a blanket, and Anneka made a Greek salad.  

The kids also wrote our weekly prayer update, studied the Bible in English and Russian, read emails from our organization and updates about the coronavirus, and thought of ideas for games that we can do online as an ice breaker for English Club.  It was a bit challenging to think of appropriate jobs for them!

     At the end of the day, we all switched beds, too!  This was the kids' favorite part!  Nettie and I slept in the girls' beds, and we got so much sleep because we went to bed so early! 

Tucking Ella in

The kids stayed up late and watched several episodes of The Cosby Show.  Ike said that it was hard work being a parent, but it was worth it for the bed!  😂