Daily Life

A little while back I put up my schedule and routines for this year, and then I took them down. The death of our friends' little girl and my increasing frustration led me to look at things a bit differently. Maybe I could do tons of stuff each day and get a lot done, but at what expense? Me being burned out and tired and my husband and children would suffer.

I know God gave us these children for a reason, and while I am supposed to be a keeper of the home, first and foremost I am a wife and mother. Reality check- my oldest is special needs. She really needs a lot of time one on one to develop better. She is going to need a lot of practice and work to get potty trained and we have to constantly remind her to do her signs or try to say words etc. Sometimes she won't utter a sound for the whole day unless prompted.

My middle child is very smart and picks up on when I am busy or frustrated or something and makes her move. (this morning she tried to sneak a piece of candy from the cupboard then lied about it) She is ready for reading and school in general, but she needs lots of help till she gets it.

Little Sarah is amazing us! She can count to 10-she can barely talk but she can count. She is a smart cookie too, and is at a great teaching age as well.

So all that to say that I have reevaluated how our life should be spent each day and through the help of the Holy Spirit I finally figured it out. In fact it came to me when I was sitting at the piano Sunday morning waiting to play the song for our offering,LOL.

1. Routines are going to be the backbone of keeping things together. I have a morning and evening one, and hope to get a consistent one for the afternoon. For now this is what I do each morning:
make bed after getting up
get dressed
tidy bedroom and bathroom
get laundry started if needed (I"m trying to get most of it done in 1-2 days instead of all week)
make breakfast
tend to girls
*after we eat and clean up, I go to the recliner and read my Bible while they play


Afternoon:
rest time and computer
finish folding and putting away laundry
do any food preps for next day or cultures
get started on dinner if needed
make sure house is tidied before dh gets home
vacuum if necessary



Evening:
tidy the house
make dh's lunch
prep breakfast
unload dishwasher
set meat or juice to thaw out
get ready for bed (bath/shower etc.)
Bible



2. If I spend the first part of the day totally focused on the girls, then hopefully they will be better content to play on their own later. This was what came to me in church. They are usually raring to go first thing in the morning. I want to 'wait till I get everything else done', then play. What usually happens is I end up working all morning, then it's lunch and naps, then no time to play. I want to get it done first thing, but I will just have to make myself wait till later to do cleaning etc.
So the idea is, after breakfast clean up we get everyone dressed, hair and teeth, tidy bedroom, then go to the play/school room (Sarah's old room that I'm working on) and play and do 'school' for 1-2 hrs. I can bring laundry in there and fold it if I need to, or maybe get them into an activity and do short cleaning chores nearby checking on them frequently. We'll see.

3. I have got to make exercise a priority. I keep putting it off and I realize that I will never have time to do it if I wait till everything else is finished first. So I am planning to do it mid-morning after our school while they watch a video. Haven't tried it yet, but that's my plan.

4. No more shopping with all of them. Sometimes it works but most of the time not. They just aren't self disciplined enough to control themselves yet. I'll just have to go at night again or on the weekends until they are trained better. Talk about wear yourself out!

5. I haven't figured out cleaning yet. I think I will make a check list of everything that needs to be done each week/month so I don't forget, and then as I can get to it, I'll do it. I will probably use Monday as a cleaning day, because the house usually needs pretty bad after the weekend, and then maybe one other day to clean. My wonderful husband has volunteered to help me with laundry if we do it all in one day. Still thinking on that.


So, I am going to do a kitchen series called 'A Week in my Kitchen' and it may or not be a whole week. It will just depend on how it goes. I plan to show all the interesting things that I make each week, my method of doing things and recipes. I am always so interested in other people's food LOL. So I thought maybe if I started this, someone else would want to do it too. Plus, even if I make menu for you all to see, there are usually changes at some point during the week. I don't think I've ever gone strictly by my menu.

Well, time to go, I need a nap!