So school is out for the kids and summer school just started for the professor. Which means I'm a single parent at home Monday through Thursday with all four, for the next 8 weeks. My dearest leaves at 6am and comes home at 11pm. Monday through Thursday. 8 weeks. Man, what am I going to do with them?
This is the first year I decided to implement a summer schedule. It basically goes like this:
5am-I get up
6am-I wake up kids for family time before Mike leaves
Kids eat breakfast and do chores
9am-Recess(That's what the kids want to call it, but it just means play time)
10am-Quiet time, reading time, nap time for the babe
11am-Lunch
12pm-Fun time(This is when we will go do fun stuff, like the science center, library, swim in people's pools, anything that involves staying cool)
3pm-TV time, friend time, and nap time(for me, that is)
5pm-dinner
6pm-Recess again
7pm-Baths
8pm-Quiet time, reading time
9pm-Bed
So I told my sister and her husband about this, and my sister says, to her dearest, "That sounds like something your mom would do," and I don't think she meant it as a compliment. I thought about that, and since she has no kids, yet, I shrugged it off. See when you don't have kids who wake up at the crack of dawn, turn on the tv, and don't move for 14 hours, you don't understand the need for some basic structure. Because if I were to, say, turn off the tv and tell them to do something else, I would get a backlash of, "There's nothing to do," "I'm so bored," "He's teasing me," and a million other phrases that grate on the sanity I'm clinging to. Hence, the schedule. Now, do we live or die by the schedule? Of course not. I can be flexible. What I think is funny is that my kids love knowing what's going to happen and when it's happening.
Yesterday my children came into my bedroom, on Memorial Day, around 6:15am.
"Mom, mom, are you up?"
Umm...no. Why?
"Come on Mom, get up, we're hungry and you said we can't eat until after family time."
"Geez guys, it's a holiday, the schedule doesn't start until tomorrow!"
"Thanks Mom."
See, they like a schedule.
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- Melony
- No false pretenses of perfection here. I'm just like you. Well maybe not JUST like you, but I'm just like me. Which is how I like it.
3 comments:
I love a good schedule. I am about to start working on ours, luckily I still have 2 more weeks of calm before the storm.
I have found a schedule helpful for me and zane. We don't always do a very good job sticking to it, though. Sounds like summer is different for bigger kids- smart thinking!
I'm not sure exactly how I found your blog. However, I love this post!!! I read your schedule like it was some kind of bible. I desperately need to implement something like that if I have any hope of surviving the summer! Then to read that your sister had less than nice things to say about it made me laugh. Just wait till she has kids saying "I'm bored, there's nothing to do, he hit me, I'm bored...etc"
Thanks!! Megan
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