Ahhhhhhh, a schedule. I am an unmotivated, lazy, procrastinating, lousy housewife and stay-at-home mother. I am worthless in the unscheduled days of summer. We lounge around until I suddenly have a fit of claustrophobia, and then we frantically get ready and rush out the door to either spend unnecessary money at Target or swelter at a park because I didn't get out of the house early enough. I thrive on a daily goal to shape our otherwise formless hours. And today started "the schedule".
Andrew started school this morning. Oh sweet heavens! Positives: Andrew gets to go to school which engages his busy mind, socializes him, and puts some structure in our daily routine. Heck, it creates a daily routine. And with him in school 4 days a week this year, it really will become our schedule. Negatives: School is only 2 1/2 hours long. This is too long to run errands with 2 babies, but not enough time to justify running an errand and then coming home and unloading them. Plus, for every day of school, that means parking, unloading the babies, walking Andrew into school. Then a few minutes later, reloading the little ones. A few hours later we repeat this process when we pick him up. Ugh. And this year they are having major construction. I wish they would develop some sort of pick-up/drop-off procedure to make it easier.
Anyhoo...I really decided to shake things up and this morning we started our TV limiting program. I am almost ashamed to admit what it is...because our "limiting" is still way more tv than children are supposed to watch. And yet it is drastically reducing the amount of tv that has been on since my last trimester of pregnancy. Andrew and I made a chart. For every day, each of us gets to watch 2 programs for the whole day. That's 2 for Lily, 2 for Andrew, and 2 for me. Each of us gets to also enjoy the other people's tv choices. So just for the kids, that's 2 hours of tv a day. And this is DRASTICALLY less than we've been watching. Lily blew through her 2 programs by 10 am. Andrew is hoarding his today...I don't know when he thinks he's going to watch, but he refuses to use up his programs yet. Oh, and there are some loopholes. For example, if it is a rainy/cold day we can also watch one movie. Or if Andrew uses up his programs and wants to watch more, he can do a chore to earn another show.
Ugh...I'm really the one who is in need of tv withdrawal. The kids don't really seem to care. But I am finding it difficult to do my chores and important things like blogging without them plugged into the tv. Pathetic. Bad mommy. But we're going to do this... I swear. And it's going to go better than my weight loss program because I have a 4 year old/chart Nazi keeping track.
Yay for schedules and new fall routines!
2 comments:
I love the way that school has limited our TV viewing! We are in the same boat with the 2 1/2 hour school day. Even with only one kid, it is difficult to really use that time. My Michael needs to eat once while Harper's in school and then tends to be ready for a little nap, which is hard to coordinate because I don't want to wake him to go pick her up. Tricky. I think it will be a while before I figure out the best way to do things.
If, a big if, I get a part time job next year we would probably put Harper in an all-day preschool and I really don't think it would be too much for her. Can't do it on one income though!
Great work.
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