Scheduled!

On Monday, I was sitting on the couch in the evening talking with Aven. 

"How are you doing?"  He asked me.  I answered truthfully, "Not great".

"Why?"  He asks. 

I thought about it…and told him - I was unhappy with how afternoon/evenings were going.

I felt un-energetic and un-inspired.  I felt like there was too much time right after school before Aven got home and not enough time after dinner. 

The kids and I would do just whatever after school – basically killing time until it was time to make dinner.  The kids would invariably end up watching tv or playing on the ipad and I would read for an hour or two.

After dinner suddenly there seemed to be tons to do – clean up the kitchen, make lunches, tidy the house, take out the garbage/recycling, make sure Hope had everything ready for the next day, etc.    

And then I’d be late going to bed, crabby about it, and somehow pissed off at the lack of time/stuff getting done. 

"Why don’t you make up a schedule for after school?"  he casually suggests.

Huh?  BRILLIANT!  Of course!!  Why hadn’t I thought of that?  And truly, I don’t know why I didn’t have one – I used to be the master of schedules and lists.  That’s what keeps me sane and happy, for heaven’s sakes. 

So the next day, Tuesday, (yesterday) I came home with a schedule for us.  This is what it looks like:

3:00 – 3:30PM	SNACK / HOMEWORK
3:30 – 4:30PM	HOPE AND MAV PLAY TOGETHER
4:30 – 5:00PM	CLEAN UP
5:00 – 5:30PM	DINNER PREP
5:30 – 6:00PM	DINNER
6:00 – 6:30PM	DINNER CLEAN UP
6:30 – 7:15PM	TV / IPAD / COMPUTER
7:15 – 8:00PM	BATH / GET READY FOR BED

At first, the kids (especially Miss Hope) were appalled that there would be no cartoons after school.  I was a little nervous, too, but we jumped right in to item #1.  Kids had a snack and Hope did here homework.  We were done that part in 20 minutes so we started playing a little early. 

Hope and Mav played some “Sleeping Queens” while I rested on the couch and watched them.  When they were tired of that they roped me into playing hide and seek with them which we did for 45 minutes and then ended out the hour playing “Car Tag” with Hotwheels on Mav’s town rug. 

Then it was on to the clean up half hour.  I wanted to spend this time just spending half hour tackling one small project.  I figure if we can just put half and hour every day into it, the house should stay looking not too bad.  So yesterday we elected to tidy up upstairs.  Hope dusted all of the furniture in the bedrooms with a damp cloth and me and Mav vacuumed.  At the end of the half hour, it was all vacuumed, wiped clean and toys picked up upstairs. 

We went downstairs so I could start dinner – baked salmon, rice, and salad.  Hope set the table while I got going on the food and Mav pouted in the living room because he was upset about something.  Eventually I would like both kids in the kitchen actually helping me prepare the food, but for the first day I decided that might be pushing it a bit. 

When Hope was done setting the table she decided to do some sewing – she has recently starting sewing fabric scraps together and loves doing this so that’s what she did and Mav ran back and forth, the length of the house to show us how fast he was.

Aven came home, we ate dinner and then it was time to bring Hope to Brownies.  She didn’t get any TV/Computer time yesterday because it was Tuesday and she was disappointed about that but got over it fairly quickly – it helps that she loves Brownies!  I took Mav along with me for the ride to give Aven a minute to himself and he tidied up the kitchen while we were out (did I mention he’s amazing?).

Mav got his cartoon time in (hello Toopy!) and then I got him started in the bath and headed out to pick up Hopey while Aven finished getting Mav ready for bed. 

Got home with Hopey – her meeting ran a bit late so it was just into jammies and brushing her teeth to get ready for bed.

Then…bed time! 

Overall, I was happy with how things had gone.  Everything that I had wanted to get done got done – I felt more energetic and purposeful.  It helped having the schedule to provide a time frame for things.   

Today we’re not going anywhere, so we’ll get the full schedule going today and maybe I’ll have the kids helping me in the kitchen a bit more for dinner.

I always find it amazing how something so small – letters and numbers on a page, really, can be such a game changer in a positive way.

Hope wanted to know if we would have this schedule FOREVER.  I told her we would use it until it was no longer useful.  Then we’d get a new one!  Bwah-hah..