It's the name of the game for me these next few months! Organizing and scheduling are NOT my strong points. I love having no schedule, waking and sleeping as I please, and spending my days doing whatever I fancy. Sometimes we wake up at 7am, sometimes 10am. Some days we do homeschooling work at 9am, sometimes 9pm, sometimes not at all. Sometimes lunch is at 11am, sometimes 3pm. Some days I wash the laundry, but rarely do I fold it so that it tends to pile up in baskets until I can no longer handle the mountainous sight. I clean like a mad woman when guests are coming over. Some nights I go to bed with my family around 9pm, and other nights like tonight I’m up at midnight with my own bowl of popcorn. It’s a wonderful life!
But as much as I seem to “love” the lack of structure, I feel like a lazy mom most of the time. And I know for the kids’ sake, some routine is needed. And for the husband too, who I’m sure would love to stop eating fast food lunches if I could only drag myself out of bed with him in the morning…and maybe even have the dinner planned before he gets home at 7pm. We would all feel better with a clean house. And now that the baby is 2 months old, we seem to finally have gotten rid of the evil flu bug, I’m actually having my final OB checkup tomorrow, and I’ve had a nice reflection on my faults with my spiritual director last week…I know it is now time for me to figure this out. I also read a
wonderful post on a blog I've been enjoying,
These Thy Gifts, which discussed the importance of organization and routines starting now when the kids are preschool age.
I know there is no way I can effectively homeschool Mary Clare with this kind of structure-less lifestyle. But it will not be easy for me. It does not come naturally, and I’m the type of person who gets lofty ideas only to ditch them a few weeks later. So you guys are now my accountability factor (along with my real-life friends and spiritual director), and this is in the mail:
I’ve heard good things about this Catholic Women’s Daily Planner from
Family-Centered Press, and it even has extra sections for meal planning and lesson plans! I really hope it can help me implement some of my goals. I’m going to write out my rough schedule plan below to help me figure out how to start some routines in a natural way.
6am Wake up with Steven to make his lunch. Allow myself to “rebag” (during this transition at least)
7:30am Morning prayers and meditation
8am Morning chores w/ girls: get dressed, brush teeth, make beds, put in laundry, unload dishwasher if needed
8:30am breakfast
9am schooltime: lessons w/ Mary Clare, reading to Ellie, etc
10am playtime for kids, breaktime for mommy
11:30am start preparing lunch
12noon Angelus and lunch
12:30pm Chores: laundry, tidying
1pm REST
3pm Play with kids
4pm Dinner prep
5pm House clean up
6-7pm (when Steven gets home) Dinner
7:30pm kitchen cleanup
8pm baths and pjs
8:30pm books and bed
Kids in bed by 9pm, me in bed by 11pm
I’m sure this will require some tweaking and will not be an exact science, especially with a small nursing baby. I’m sure it will also take a long while for me to get committed to this. With our busy schedule including lots of activities, I will have to learn how to adjust it when we have a morning out. But hopefully it will be a good starting point for me. We’ll see how this week goes.
(That was written last night when we had no internet connection to post--yay for free wireless in our neighborhood--but the connection is not the best. So far so good this Monday morning. House is fairly clean, I've had my last OB appointment, and Mary Clare was even asking if we can make a list of chores for her. Hopefully the rest of the week goes smoothly!)
