Time and how we define it...some say 24 hours a day others say not enough hours in the day and others say to live one day at a time. Me I want my time to be fair not equal when dealing with chores, kids and time for me. Luckily I have the most amazing husband in the world, he's not perfect (who is?) but he is amazing and wonderful and I couldn't do even half of what I do if it was not for him.
Here is a typical school day - for me just what I do, not what everyone is doing..like how I don't mention Rebecca is brushing her teeth at 7:35am and Natalie does at 7:40am...
7:30am wake up
7:35am Natalie's medication.
7:36am lay out uniforms
7:45am Nag older kids to get dressed if needed)
7:50am start combing little girl hair and putting it up.
7:55am remind kids about shoes and help Natalie with her laces
8:00am make sure we are not missing any books, folders or paperwork for school
8:05am alarm goes off, coats get put on if needed, backpacks and out the door with daddy to the bus
8:10am *sigh*
8:30am I get breakfast
8:45am my 'office' hours start - usually print, laminate, or cut out things or the kids to do during lessons.
12:00pm (ish) Feed the baby some lunch, have some cuddles lay her down for her nap.
1:00pm (ish) back to the office to work some more
3:20pm watch for the bus, unlock the door, get ready for the warden of homework
3:25pm remind kids to go quietly to the bedroom and to hang up coats and backpacks
3:30pm supervise snack time
3:35pm shoo Rebecca out to the livingroom to play, watch TV, read or game depends on her
3:40pm go through Natalie's backpack and get homework organized
3:45pm clean off the picnic table
3:50pm get Natalie set up, make her get her pencil, magic pen, erasers and her books to read ready
3:55pm we start with math facts, spelling, math homework packet, then reading and reading journal
3:45 - 5:30 switch to Rebecca for homework - depends on how good my day goes with Natalie
5:30pm supervise supper
6:00pm get shower started
6:10 remind Rebecca to get in the shower
6:15pm threaten to toss her in fully dressed...watch her scamper giggling
6:20 sign all folders, fill up backpacks and zip them up
6:30ish feed the baby supper, enjoy some cuddles, put her down for a nap
7:15pm remind daddy to get Rebecca out and Natalie in
7:20pm remind Rebecca to dry off for the 3rd or 4th time
7:25pm tell her for the 3rd or 4th time to get her jammies on
7:30pm (suppose to be bedtime) comb her hair, get it into loose braids
7:35pm make sure there is not an army of stuffed animals in her bed
7:40pm get her to lay down, turn out the light, just about to close the door...answer question(s)
7:45pm close the door with good night, sleep tight, I love you, see you in the morning
7:46pm sink into couch *sigh*
7:50-8:15pm (ish) get the baby up and cuddles/play - remind daddy to get Natalie out
8:20pm remind Natalie to dry off and get dressed
8:25pm after she is finally dressed answer her 8th complaint of im hungry with get a small snack
8:30pm check on Rebecca if she is snoring send Natalie to bed if not recheck every 10minutes
8:35-11pm (ish) Put Natalie to bed
1 minute later sink into couch and *sigh*
Between 9pm and midnight - put the baby to bed
sometime between 9am and 4am - go to bed...
IF and that IF is IFFY I might get to watch a TV show on netflix before putting the baby to bed or before passing out..usually not
Now you did notice i didn't have to cook right? No household chores were on there...most of the time it seems no one is looking after the baby...in steps daddy (or the weekend)
Daddy pretty much naps with or takes care of Loralei (the baby) every morning till roughly noon. Then after school he does the same and also supervises whichever child is not doing homework. He takes care of the garbage going out, the disherwasher being loaded, all the cooking (I sometimes toss eggo waffles in the toaster but that is the extent of my kitchen time other than to grab a cold drink). He also washes the girls hair for me...like I said he is AMAZING and WONDERFUL! We save all major household chores for the weekend, we pretty much call Saturday lessons and room clean up day..Sunday is chore day. Saturday the girls do a big room clean, I vacuum and dust (since part of the room is my office) make sure the garbage gets emptied into big can and that everything is orderly. I usually start my orderly clean up and weekend prep Friday afternoon after Loralei goes down for her nap. But I don't vacuum or dust till the kids are cleaning too..its a teamwork thing! Sunday the kids help straighten up the livingroom, thy help gather up any loose laundry and help sort it. They pick up Loralei's toys if they are strewed about and they do any odd jobs of carrying or moving things as Daddy or I ask. I do laundry all day and I TRY TRY TRY to get it all sorted and put away as soon as it gets out of the dryer...did I mention all our clothes are in our laundry room - our shelf cubby system instead of dressers is all in the laundry room..LAUNDRY IS SO MUCH LESS WORK THIS WAY !! Did I mention I only fold towels, blankets, sheets, daddy's shirts and jeans, the babies clothes and uniform for school..the rest get tossed into their bins and pulled out as needed..saves me 4 hours a week doing laundry! I know! I timed how long it takes to put it all away vs folding it all and putting it away...4 hours a week back it's wonderful!! Mind you I only own 1 dress skirt, 1 dress pants, and 5 or 6 nice dressy tops that I do fold and only have to deal with once a month or two or three...so if you work in an office you can't have 4 hours back of your life...sorry.
While laundry is being done, vacuuming gets done, dusting, sweeping, mopping, tubs gets a magic eraser wipe down - best thing for a tub EVER!! The toilet gets a quick soak with cleaner and a scrub, clorox wipe down the seat, handle, the sink, and the tub faucet (yes with a new one for each task sheesh
wouldn't that be gross to clean your toilet seat then the tub faucet with the same one....)
Voila by shower time on Sunday I know it all got done, by Monday afternoon our home looks lived in again! Who cares...kids live here...I live here and we live..we laugh, we love and we play!! We don't look pristine, our home is not spotless and I can't recall the last time our kitchen didn't have a few dirty dishes in it..okay I can the day before our last vacation only because I make it spotless before we go so I can come home and relax after vacation...read previous post about spring break and see how vacations go...and why i need to relax after vacation!
Ahh now back to time bing Equal if you read that schedule you notice that Rebecca might not get a lot of homework time - which means her 1 on 1 time can be cut short - but lets be fair she can do all of her homework in 5 to 15 minutes since she is in kindergarten, she doesn't have ADHD (that we know of - yet) and she is always near someone, talking, nonstop she never sits quietly and just plays she is interactive from the time she gets up to the time she goes to bed and she spends the whole time Natalie is doing homework with daddy in the livingroom sometimes 1 on 1 if Loralei is sleeping good, sometimes playing with Loralei and she gets at least 15 minutes right before bed 1 on 1 with me talking while we get hair and the room ready...so no their time is not equal but it is FAIR because everyone's needs are being met!! Well except mine someday's - I miss me time - but that is a whole other can of worms and someday's i get lots of me time to just daydream or tv marathons..just not very often.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Oh So Spring Break...Is More Like Broken Eggs.
I have a love hate relationship with spring break. Yes it is great to give the kids and the teachers a nice break...however that means 9 1/2 days for my nonstop with all three kids home. I love my kids to pieces. I love their laughter, I love their hugs and kisses, I love their energy and I especially love their creative way of doing things!! I do not however love 9 1/2 days without a break from them, and them from each other. School gives them time away from each other, a much needed break I might add to keep our home calmer. I need the break too so I can get things done without them under my feet, without having to break up 11 fights in a day, so i can have some uninterrupted time with the baby and maybe take a nap if I need too.
However when they are off for 9 1/2 days there is no break. It was too cold for the park on the days it didn't rain and then when the weather finally got a little nicer, we all got colds and I refused to take the baby out with a runny nose and coughing.I know some moms are unfazed by 9 month old with a cold but I am not so lucky. I see every shopping cart, every kid, every swing at the park as a germ infestation waiting to take a hold on my kids and rather than carry around clorox wipes everywhere I go or chase them around with hand sanitizer nonstop...me I opt to stay in when the baby is not feeling well and her immune system is already fighting off one germ Heaven knows another germ in her means less sleep for me, more crying all around and in 24 to 48 hours I will have the new germ too!!
Maybe if we went on a vacation it would be nicer...HAHAHA vacations are suppose to be fun and relaxing...but unless you are visiting a family member (at their home preferably) what vacations really turn into is WORK. Packing, traveling, setting u a hotel room, trying t get 3 kids to sleep in a strange place. Trying to find food that everyone will eat that isn't going to cause obesity or a heart attack is always WORK too! Then we have 'vacation' by which I mean the kids find something to get into or do that makes me cringe, carrying dirt in buckets up to the walk way on the 3rd floor to sump it out to play with...or making phone calls to china on the hotel phone while I am trying to bath the baby in the itty bitty hotel sink that has 1 minute of hot water so hot it feels like it is burning you, then goes ice cold for 3 hours...more WORK! Then we have to pack it all up...travel some more with 3 sleep deprived kids who no doubt had more McDonalds fries and nuggets than I want to admit too and not enough fruit and veggies...then we get home and I have to unpack, wash everything, put it all away...yeah more WORK!
It is so much easier to just stay home...and relax! And by relax I mean lock myself in the bathroom for at least 1 hour sitting in a hot shower ignoring the knocks at the door, and the cries from the other room...while daddy mumbles curses at me under his breath. Or staying up t late making some new project and then sleeping in till noon one day..just one day...waking up to baby powder all over the bedroom/office because daddy forgot it in there the night before... and was so happy the kids were getting along that he didn't check to see why they were so quiet...yeah no relaxing for this mom!!
Thank the stars that school started back up yesterday, I think I found another gray hair or 200 since the week before!!
However when they are off for 9 1/2 days there is no break. It was too cold for the park on the days it didn't rain and then when the weather finally got a little nicer, we all got colds and I refused to take the baby out with a runny nose and coughing.I know some moms are unfazed by 9 month old with a cold but I am not so lucky. I see every shopping cart, every kid, every swing at the park as a germ infestation waiting to take a hold on my kids and rather than carry around clorox wipes everywhere I go or chase them around with hand sanitizer nonstop...me I opt to stay in when the baby is not feeling well and her immune system is already fighting off one germ Heaven knows another germ in her means less sleep for me, more crying all around and in 24 to 48 hours I will have the new germ too!!
Maybe if we went on a vacation it would be nicer...HAHAHA vacations are suppose to be fun and relaxing...but unless you are visiting a family member (at their home preferably) what vacations really turn into is WORK. Packing, traveling, setting u a hotel room, trying t get 3 kids to sleep in a strange place. Trying to find food that everyone will eat that isn't going to cause obesity or a heart attack is always WORK too! Then we have 'vacation' by which I mean the kids find something to get into or do that makes me cringe, carrying dirt in buckets up to the walk way on the 3rd floor to sump it out to play with...or making phone calls to china on the hotel phone while I am trying to bath the baby in the itty bitty hotel sink that has 1 minute of hot water so hot it feels like it is burning you, then goes ice cold for 3 hours...more WORK! Then we have to pack it all up...travel some more with 3 sleep deprived kids who no doubt had more McDonalds fries and nuggets than I want to admit too and not enough fruit and veggies...then we get home and I have to unpack, wash everything, put it all away...yeah more WORK!
It is so much easier to just stay home...and relax! And by relax I mean lock myself in the bathroom for at least 1 hour sitting in a hot shower ignoring the knocks at the door, and the cries from the other room...while daddy mumbles curses at me under his breath. Or staying up t late making some new project and then sleeping in till noon one day..just one day...waking up to baby powder all over the bedroom/office because daddy forgot it in there the night before... and was so happy the kids were getting along that he didn't check to see why they were so quiet...yeah no relaxing for this mom!!
Thank the stars that school started back up yesterday, I think I found another gray hair or 200 since the week before!!
Saturday, March 22, 2014
My Newest Adventure
How It All Started
Pinterest..it all started on Pinterest. At first I just loved the ability to organize things that caught my attention, or were interesting to me. I could pin it, and go back whenever I wanted to, to access it..it was wonderful. Then I came across preschool postings, games and activities homeschooling moms were doing. Having had two girls both with speech issues, I wanted to give my youngest the best start so I thought I would gather preschool ideas and planned that by the time she was 2 or 3 I would have an arsenal of things to do with her during the day while the other two girls were at school. Then I got the idea to do weekly themes. So I started organizing ideas into group, and weeks and themes and months. I finally came up with 56 themes (so far).
(Jump forward 2 months)
M daughters kindergarten class went on field trip in October to the pumpkin patch. During the ride home, her teacher and I, whom I have known for 3 years, told me that between the two kindergarten classes and 45 students, that 30 tested in the red zone in September, and that with the new common core curriculum being phased in this year at our school that it was frustrating to say the least. So I did what I could..I started volunteering every afternoon mostly in my daughters class at first, but by the end i was going between the two classes, working mostly with the intervention kids or the kids struggling with one particular topic. I also helped out with sight word testing, and test prep for the December test. I was in LOVE with helping. After nine weeks however, my youngest who was only 6 months old at the time was not so happy with me being away for 3 hours every afternoon so I had to cut my time down. I volunteer for field trips to chaperon, come to all the parties to help dish out food, hand out the treat bags, and I usually read to the kids at the end of the day. The kids LOVE it when I show up, they tell me how much they miss me and they spend the whole day telling me about their accomplishments and thanking me for the help I gave them. So of course I love it too!!
Jump to November. At a parent teacher conference for my oldest, it was suggested that she might have AD/HD and a little bell went off in my heart and in my head. My daughter wasn't just way too smart, way too strong-willed, way too stubborn and socially awkward. She had a reason for temper tantrums, she had a reason for being so easily upset over things. She was formally diagnosed in January and after 3 weeks of debating with myself and discussions with daddy I made the move to have her begin medication February 1st. During that meeting, I also learned a lot about my daughter. She was struggling not with curriculum really...but with how the curriculum was taught, and having to learn to do math 10 different ways - ways that are to her foreign...something that came so easy to her has now become a chore. Her tests are riddled with lost marks for not showing all the steps to the strategies..her right answers are obsolete. Writing was always something she hated, but now she has to write so much more with common core, that any writing I ask her to do is a struggle of "this is boring" or "do I have too?" I also found out how our local school was dividing the kids up for spelling and reading groups. I can't say my first impressions of common core based on her class has given me any confidence with the new curriculum.
Jump to December. The kindergarten kids were tested over two days. Each of the 45 students in our kindergarten classes were given a quick review right before their tests. 30 were in the green, 10 were in the yellow and only 5 were still in the red. Of those 5 one has a severe speech impediment, and the other 4 are intervention kids. All five of them were in the class I spent less time with. Then it hit me, that 1 on 1 time makes a huge difference. The games and worksheets I made to help them were really working. My own kindergartner although still going through some speech classes tested in the green, however her test scores were not nearly as high as the pretests she had done with me or her teacher. It was at this point that we were at home adjusting our routine and discipline practices to cope with AD/HD to see if it made any difference it did, positively for our oldest, but it had a negative affect on my middle girl.
This was when I realized that I needed to give each girl some dedicated 1 on 1 time. So each night I spend an hour with one while the other has 1 hour of media time, it can be the computer, TV, or the ipad. This hour worked out well for my oldest, she would do her homework, read, and we would talk, if she had a good night we would have time to play silly games or draw pictures together. However my kindergartner had a hard time filling up the hour. Her usual homework was not cutting it. She was resistant to sight word practice, she was stubborn about reading, she outright refused to write neatly when we would practice letters or numbers saying "but we do this at school". She talks nonstop but it isn't conversation material, she is a little bit of a gossiper, something I am not very good talking about or listening too. So I would try to focus when she would go on and on about who did what and said what but I kept finding myself unconsciously tuning her out. I knew I needed something fresh to engage her academically so I did some research, and I found teacherspayteacher.com. She was reveling in the new work, i got a little peace and quiet so that when she would talk, i could focus. I was in heaven.
Then my creative juices really got rolling.
My preschool weekly themes morphed into weekend lessons for the older two. My creative side got a new outlet. My girls got more interesting fun ways to practice skills they were learning at school. And our household got a lot calmer....there was less free fight time and more structured fun time. My oldest started to flourish, my middle girl started to be more cooperative and my youngest started sleeping a little better during afternoon nap time.
Because I am just starting out it is a lot of work. I also have to create games and worksheets that can be used multiple times, by multiple levels of ability. These challenges keep me up late, and working hard for many hours during the day each day, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I invested a good chunk of our tax return into TpT products for both girls. I bought a really good printer, a better laminate machine, a filing cabinet, a ton of laminate pouches, file folders and a cutting board. I learned how to navigate power point, invested time and money into clip art. Polished up my writing skills. I learned about common core standards and how to apply them into projects. And in a few short weeks I created 30 projects. All of them, i gave for free to my local school kindergarten teachers. On St. Patrick's Day I got to see them use a test prep math packet I made. I was blown away, i got so many hugs and requests for me to make more.
These are my first steps into blogging about my journey...as a mom and my steps towards being a little more!
Pinterest..it all started on Pinterest. At first I just loved the ability to organize things that caught my attention, or were interesting to me. I could pin it, and go back whenever I wanted to, to access it..it was wonderful. Then I came across preschool postings, games and activities homeschooling moms were doing. Having had two girls both with speech issues, I wanted to give my youngest the best start so I thought I would gather preschool ideas and planned that by the time she was 2 or 3 I would have an arsenal of things to do with her during the day while the other two girls were at school. Then I got the idea to do weekly themes. So I started organizing ideas into group, and weeks and themes and months. I finally came up with 56 themes (so far).
(Jump forward 2 months)
M daughters kindergarten class went on field trip in October to the pumpkin patch. During the ride home, her teacher and I, whom I have known for 3 years, told me that between the two kindergarten classes and 45 students, that 30 tested in the red zone in September, and that with the new common core curriculum being phased in this year at our school that it was frustrating to say the least. So I did what I could..I started volunteering every afternoon mostly in my daughters class at first, but by the end i was going between the two classes, working mostly with the intervention kids or the kids struggling with one particular topic. I also helped out with sight word testing, and test prep for the December test. I was in LOVE with helping. After nine weeks however, my youngest who was only 6 months old at the time was not so happy with me being away for 3 hours every afternoon so I had to cut my time down. I volunteer for field trips to chaperon, come to all the parties to help dish out food, hand out the treat bags, and I usually read to the kids at the end of the day. The kids LOVE it when I show up, they tell me how much they miss me and they spend the whole day telling me about their accomplishments and thanking me for the help I gave them. So of course I love it too!!
Jump to November. At a parent teacher conference for my oldest, it was suggested that she might have AD/HD and a little bell went off in my heart and in my head. My daughter wasn't just way too smart, way too strong-willed, way too stubborn and socially awkward. She had a reason for temper tantrums, she had a reason for being so easily upset over things. She was formally diagnosed in January and after 3 weeks of debating with myself and discussions with daddy I made the move to have her begin medication February 1st. During that meeting, I also learned a lot about my daughter. She was struggling not with curriculum really...but with how the curriculum was taught, and having to learn to do math 10 different ways - ways that are to her foreign...something that came so easy to her has now become a chore. Her tests are riddled with lost marks for not showing all the steps to the strategies..her right answers are obsolete. Writing was always something she hated, but now she has to write so much more with common core, that any writing I ask her to do is a struggle of "this is boring" or "do I have too?" I also found out how our local school was dividing the kids up for spelling and reading groups. I can't say my first impressions of common core based on her class has given me any confidence with the new curriculum.
Jump to December. The kindergarten kids were tested over two days. Each of the 45 students in our kindergarten classes were given a quick review right before their tests. 30 were in the green, 10 were in the yellow and only 5 were still in the red. Of those 5 one has a severe speech impediment, and the other 4 are intervention kids. All five of them were in the class I spent less time with. Then it hit me, that 1 on 1 time makes a huge difference. The games and worksheets I made to help them were really working. My own kindergartner although still going through some speech classes tested in the green, however her test scores were not nearly as high as the pretests she had done with me or her teacher. It was at this point that we were at home adjusting our routine and discipline practices to cope with AD/HD to see if it made any difference it did, positively for our oldest, but it had a negative affect on my middle girl.
This was when I realized that I needed to give each girl some dedicated 1 on 1 time. So each night I spend an hour with one while the other has 1 hour of media time, it can be the computer, TV, or the ipad. This hour worked out well for my oldest, she would do her homework, read, and we would talk, if she had a good night we would have time to play silly games or draw pictures together. However my kindergartner had a hard time filling up the hour. Her usual homework was not cutting it. She was resistant to sight word practice, she was stubborn about reading, she outright refused to write neatly when we would practice letters or numbers saying "but we do this at school". She talks nonstop but it isn't conversation material, she is a little bit of a gossiper, something I am not very good talking about or listening too. So I would try to focus when she would go on and on about who did what and said what but I kept finding myself unconsciously tuning her out. I knew I needed something fresh to engage her academically so I did some research, and I found teacherspayteacher.com. She was reveling in the new work, i got a little peace and quiet so that when she would talk, i could focus. I was in heaven.
Then my creative juices really got rolling.
My preschool weekly themes morphed into weekend lessons for the older two. My creative side got a new outlet. My girls got more interesting fun ways to practice skills they were learning at school. And our household got a lot calmer....there was less free fight time and more structured fun time. My oldest started to flourish, my middle girl started to be more cooperative and my youngest started sleeping a little better during afternoon nap time.
Because I am just starting out it is a lot of work. I also have to create games and worksheets that can be used multiple times, by multiple levels of ability. These challenges keep me up late, and working hard for many hours during the day each day, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I invested a good chunk of our tax return into TpT products for both girls. I bought a really good printer, a better laminate machine, a filing cabinet, a ton of laminate pouches, file folders and a cutting board. I learned how to navigate power point, invested time and money into clip art. Polished up my writing skills. I learned about common core standards and how to apply them into projects. And in a few short weeks I created 30 projects. All of them, i gave for free to my local school kindergarten teachers. On St. Patrick's Day I got to see them use a test prep math packet I made. I was blown away, i got so many hugs and requests for me to make more.
These are my first steps into blogging about my journey...as a mom and my steps towards being a little more!
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