When I lay down at night with my husband, I can pretty much count on there being more than the two of us that wake up in our bed.  You know how it is, you are sleeping, content, dreaming; all the stress and wrinkles of the day are melting away. Your body is hard at work making repairs and your brain is busy processing all the day's data, storing it away in our brain files.  

Then I hear it.  The sound of carpet fibers being bent and crushed under little feet.  I hope it is the dog.  But, I know deep down, that it is one of the children.  What do they want.  My brain stops processing the former day's information.  A file or two - particularly the one containing the memory of where I put my car keys, is dropped on my brain floor.  My body stops making repairs, the emerging grey hair, wrinkle, or skin sag will be allowed to continue on it's way to making me look a year or two older than necessary. 

I feel tapping.  I initially try to ignore it.  Maybe if I pretend it is not there, it will go away like your bills.  What child is it?  Is it the littlest one, the typical one who is so sweet to snuggle with still?  She doesn't take up too much space, and the smell of her hair is about as precious as it can be.  That would be okay.  The tapping gets more insistent.  I hear the voice of my six year old daughter.  "Mommy, I am scared, can I sleep with you." 

I say, "Go get your pillow and blanket and you can lay on the floor."  Don't judge me, this child snores like a freight train and coughs every 5 seconds due to her allergies. She is not snuggly. She is all arms and legs and muscle.  She says, "I don't want to sleep on the floor. I want to sleep with you."   I tell her to go around and ask her father.  I am hoping that he tells her the same thing.  Nope.  He hauls her up into the bed and puts her smack dab in the middle.  I am thinking I could have done that, I just did not want to. So now, I get to look like the mean parent.  I am laying there trying to get comfortable with a six year old's knee in my right side, while her coughing threatens to drive me to full insanity, when I hear more feet. 

It is the snuggly one.  She trips over something in the floor and starts to fuss, I tell her to come to me and haul her up in the bed.  She is sleeping on my left side.  I am a mommy sandwich.  I find myself thinking that it could be a long night and briefly consider the sofa, or one of the now empty kid's bed.  I wonder how exactly am I going to extract myself from the bed in the morning without waking one of them up. 

I sorta sleep.  When I wake up in the morning, I flip the 3 year old, who has drooled in my hair, over my body and put her next to her sister.  In the process, I wake the three year up.  Why is it she can stay asleep in the car, at 5 pm, when I don't want her to sleep and we are trying everything to wake her up, but is the lightest sleeper in the world at 7 am?  I wake up a little cranky and she is now asking me to carry her to the livingroom.  I make her walk.  I know I am a mean mommy.  But, I have not even had my first cup of coffee yet. 

I really do try to appreciate all these moments, even when they are hard and I am tired.  I try to remember graciousness and gratefullness, because they really do get big way too fast.  I sit on the sofa, hold my preschooler and drink my coffee.

I will leave you with this.  I have always loved it :) Enjoy!

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I have been homeschooling for a couple of years now.  I really love it!  But, I did not love having to direct every single little thing about the children’s day.  Contrary to popular belief, I am NOT a micromanager.  Or, at least, I will never admit to being one!  I needed to organize the kids school stuff in a way that they could get started on the work they do independently, until I was ready to get out of my pajamas start their corporate work.  I heard a lot about the workbox system by Sue Patrick, but knew that there was no way I could implement her system.  I don’t have room for 3 carts holding a total of 36 shoebox sized boxes, and this would be before I added Bekah’s.  So I read blog after blog after blog, searching for the answer.  What I came up with is more of a combination of what I found. 

I have a workbox, singular!  I decided to go with a file folder system.  I bought a box from Office Depot (on sale for $4.99), a box of hanging file folders, and some clips I found for a buck.  I could not find the medium point sharpie markers my friend Sam found, but perhaps this was because I had my husband and all four children in tow. 

When we arrived back home; I got to work.  I labeled 10 folders with Jaela’s name and numbered them 1 – 10.  Then I did 5 for Quin and 5 for Micah.  I used the remaining six folders for my own things.  I got out my lesson planner, scanned down it, and put all of Jaela’s stuff in the folders; math in one, drawing in another, reading instructions with the book in yet another, and so on. 

 

I interspersed some fun things, like time for snack, in other folders as well.  The idea is she will start with the first folder and continue working through them in order.  Every few folders, or after a particularly long activity she will find a break with something fun.  This will, hopefully, keep her motivated.

 

I did the same thing for the little ones as well.  I will make up some pretty snack break and computer time pages today.  Then I am going to laminate them with my spiffy new laminator.  (How did I EVER live without that thing?)  But a sheet of paper and a marker works for now!

Tell me what you think?  How do you organize your children’s schoolwork?

My house is crazy at night.  My husband comes in at 2:45 or so and the kids lose their minds.  I have often wondered about the cause.  I have relative calm during the day and my husband doesn't see that part.  He only sees the crazy.  In an effort to make things a bit mor calm and peaceful I have tried to take a good hard look at how we are spending our evenings.  What I discovered surprised me.  During the day we have stucture and routine, at night, there is none.  Ok so now I feel sure I know what the problem is.  I am expecting far too much from my small children and husband.  I need to either lower my expectations or form a better routine for the kids so they can have the tools they need to meet them. 
This is the plan for the 2 –8 pm hours.
When the weather cooperates, I am going to make outside time from 2 to 3.  That way they can run around to their hearts content.  When Daddy comes home, they are all eager to see him, so they will come inside for a bit, but I am betting that they go back out.  I need for them to be occupied while Gary and I talk about his day.  He needs that down time with me.  So if they don’t go back outside, I think I may let them play Webkinz on my computer for a little bit, I hardly ever let them and that always keeps them busy.  That way I can have the time with Gary and coffee, without the distraction of my computer LOL.  When I sit, the laptop is the first thing I want to pick up.  
Then we have the cooking supper hour.  I know what people say, “Let the kids help you.”  I say, “Come get them and let them help YOU.”  I am a realist.  While I can get some lofty ideas in my head, I know what will work long term for me.  That is not going to be having the kids underfoot during the  ‘crabby hour’ (I will not say if it is me or them) while making the biggest meal of the day.  So, I need something to keep them occupied from 3:45 or so to 5 pm while I am cooking.  I am thinking realistically here so I know that asking Gary to entertain them might work for a little bit but would not be a long term solution.  I initially thought maybe they could do their evening chores during this time slot but that requires more intensive supervision than I can give at that point. 
Some ideas to rotate around, depending on time and what I am cooking: 

• Put Quin in the bathtub and Mike in the shower.  This is me being sneaky, once they are in there, Gary will get them out most times.  If not, it is not that big of a deal to do it myself.   
• Have them go play in their room for a little bit.
• Have them go back outside.
• Allow them to take part in supper prep. (I can sometimes do this, it really does depend on the circumstances.)
• Let them hook up the game cube.
• Break out the play dough.

So that is what I have come up with so far.  I can’t just pick one thing and repeat it everyday.  I need this to be very flexible.  So, I am glad for this list.  Now here is my plan for after supper:

• Clean up after supper
• Baths for everyone
• Final chores for the evening
• Storytime
• Bed time

I think this will work!  I really want my home to be more peaceful and less chaotic.  I feel so much stress at night, I don’t want to cook, clean, or care for anyone!  Our lack of structure at night surely plays a part in this.  Hopefully, as I am now more aware of the problem, we can make our nights pleasant!