The Final Day of the Kid's Survival Experiment

The final day started off well. The kids got up leisurely and Lucy. still in pyjamas, made pancakes for breakfast.

Lucy put the washing on but without some of Tristan's things so he added them later - I am not sure when.
They made themselves instant noodles for lunch.

But after lunch it descended into chaos. They were tidying the kitchen after the mess from lunch and breakfast when Tristan used too much cleaning spray, Lucy got cross and the yelling began. Tristan walked out. Lucy followed in tears, "You have no idea how tired I am. All the cooking I have done for you!" She also declared her dislike of little brothers and he wasn't very complementary back. Every time they looked at me to sort it out, I told them it was up to them.
After sitting around ignoring each other before cajoling each other, rather forceful hugging, apologising and more tears they actually finished cleaning the kitchen, putting the dishes away and hanging out their washing. All that, with the arguing, took them nearly two hours. Lucy still kept reminding Tristan of his shortcomings. I asked if she thought this approach was helping the situation. "Yes," she says, "It is very revenging."
Tristan was on dinner, it was an easy one fish and chips - ie. fish fingers and a bag of supermarket chips. He even offered to make it for us too. His own touch was spearing the fish fingers on kebab skewers to make 'hot dogs'.
He read the instructions on the packets, heated the oven, put it all in and waited the eight minutes the packets said. He got it out after exactly eight minutes and declared it ready - this was at 4:45pm.

The ill-fated first bite.

But after one bite, Lucy deemed it wasn't cooked enough and the plates were emptied back onto the trays and back into the oven. Lucy suggested desserts were more his strength but another fifteen or so minutes and he was serving up with more golden coloured fish fingers and chips.
Tristan hung the washing on the rack to finish drying - it seems suspiciously wet. He hung it on the rack, not for maximum drying but to make a hut.
Lucy had planned self-saucing chocolate pudding for dessert but her previous recipes had used up all the eggs. I said I wasn't going to buy more and sometimes you just had to change your plans to suit what was in the pantry. Lucy instead went next door and asked Grandma if she could borrow an egg.

Enjoying Lucy's pudding, the extra 

was taken over to Grandma.

There is one kitchen tidy up and putting sorting the dishes to go before what Tristan has termed 'the last supper'.
Tristan said he has enjoyed the experiment. He said, "Being an adult is actually quite hard. You can't just stay on the computer all day because you have jobs to do."
He said he learnt a lot and this included, cooking for just two of them was quite easy but doing all the dishes was harder than it looked. He also found hanging the washing out difficult because of the height of the washing line.
Lucy found the experiment tiring and awesome. She says, "Don't take parents for granted they do a lot of work." She found doing the washing and not just leaving it for us, quite hard. She also found she couldn't just do her own thing as her day kept being interrupted all the time for having to do jobs, like make lunch and do the dishes.
Overall the amount of dishes created has been vast compared to normal while the clothes deemed needing to be washed has been tiny.

Late Update: The kids were a little too excited while finishing cleaning the kitchen and engaged in a spot of dancing ( rock'n'roll or beyblade style, depending on your era) which led to Tristan falling against the bookcase. A trip to the after hours was needed and a little glue to the head. So if you try this experiment ban dancing. From the start to think I was most nervous about knife use and the hot oven!