The Schedule

So here it is! My latest excuse for not blogging as much as I could and recording all of the crazy, zany, hilarious things that happen during the day around here. I have been making... brace yourselves... A SCHEDULE. I know, right? You never thought it would happen to me! But it has, people, and let me tell you what, we are totally hooked. I know that the schedule looks a little strange to you, so let me share a closer picture. This is what part of our morning looks like. I am pink (being the only girl around here), Griffin is orange, Sammy is lime green and JJ, the 4-year-old I take care of several days a week, is blue. The time slots are in half hour or one hour segments, and the boys are very willing to drop everything and move on to the next activity when it is time! I am amazed at how smoothly our days are running... but it IS only Tuesday, and we just started using it yesterday. :) We have not been following it to the letter, but when the kids start arguing or need a diversion, we go look at the schedule and see what it tells us to do next, and that diffuses the situation. Oh yeah. I promised you more pictures.

Isn't it pretty? It took me about a week to read through the book Managers Of Their Homes by Steve and Teri Maxwell (www.titus2.com), and then several more days to get the schedule worksheets done. I then stayed up late on Sunday night writing all of our daily activities into little colored squares and cutting out the squares and using the provided Sticky Tac to stick the squares to the schedule. It was so much fun, and it felt a lot like putting a puzzle together. The feeling of accomplishment when I had completed it was amazing! And even if we don't follow it to a "T", we will see many benefits from using it, I'm sure!

There is even a forum where you can go and ask questions and talk to other people who are doing the MOTH system to find out what works for other people so that you don't feel completely alone in doing the whole "schedule" thing. It is a foreign concept to me, let me tell you! Even though we were on somewhat of a schedule in school, and I was definitely on one in college, I had never thought of running my household on schedule. I mean, we haven't even started homechooling yet!

We now have made time in our day to get all of the daily chores done, play outside TWICE a day (this makes the boys SO HAPPY!!), brush the dog every day, have one-on-one Mommy time, and I even have two full hours in the evening to spend watching a movie, doing my nails, making cards, surfing the web, whatever! I'm sure there will be less of that type of stuff going on after we start school, so I'm going to soak it up while I can. :)

I'll keep updating my blog and writing about how well it's working and how this schedule impacts our family.

Oh yeah. One other thing. I have gone over the day's schedule with Griffin both mornings, and he has been very good about reminding me that we need to check the schedule to see if we are doing "the right thing at the right time" and are not falling behind. As Caleb said "typical first born!" But hey, he's keeping this "middle child" on track, so his reminders work out great for both of us! Tomorrow we have JJ from 8:45am-4pm, and I think the schedule will be awesome for a full day with three active little boys.