So on to the everyday....
This has been a nice morning so far, although ME has already poured Q-tips all over the bedroom, dumped one of her brother's games on the floor and stepped on a basil plant, but that is about par for her having been awake for three hours now. :-) She is a busy, busy gal. But a doll and her curiosity really is just a part of her desire to absorb EVERYTHING around her, she has a hunger for it and it is not something Im interested in quashing. So I get to try to help her not do it in a destructive way, but Mommy can't, and isnt interested in policing her every move either, so messes occur!
We tended the chickens, they loved the left over watermelon and washed out their water holder. We then watered the garden and transplanted more plants from the greenhouse, today was more basil (genovese) and a variety of chili peppers. I want to do our direct sow plants today, I should have done them weeks ago!!
So the plan for today is as follows....
Make breakfast
Morning Chores (some are done, but finish up)
Take a walk
Yoga
Movement
Music
Journal writing
comprehension for GM
Silly Rhymes puzzle for GD
MLB entry about Akimba and the magic cow (GM)
MLB entry about Rabia of Basra (GM)
Storytime
Math practice
Reading
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Lunch
feed Oreo
find the seeds to sow and plant them
Read the story of Nandanar and Lord Shiva to GM
Outdoor play
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Dinner (either I will cook, or we will go out as a family to our favorite rest)
Play a game as a family
Storytime
Bed
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So Im hoping we can get most of this to come together today. We have had a great week so far. It has helped me a lot to post our plan for the day here, I guess it motivates me somehow. I know, WIERDO!!! :-)
By the way, GD was so happy to have a message on the phone from Tupa in VA he feels so special!!! He even got a box in the mail (special delivery) from Tucson. The postman was terrific and sang him happy birthday with a great duck voice. He LOVED it!!!! Here is a pic of what he found inside the box. :-)
6 comments:
Congratulations on 10 years! I remember what a milestone it was (it will be 18 years for us this August), and how real and permanent it made everything feel (I was also pregnant with our first son).
You seem to be so busy and to get so much done! Do you ever sleep? I feel lazy in comparison.
Im trying really really hard this week. I think it sounds like more too. Im trying to break things down into little catagories, so I feel done a lot of the time. I get to have those little checks in my brain that help me keep from feeling overwhelmed, and the pride and happiness I have when we get our lessons done in a nice way is so much better than the guilt I have when we dont. :-)
Have you experienced any burnout or overwhelm while trying to keep a good daily rhythm and fit it all in? On the one hand I love being busy and accomplishing everything, but sometimes quiet time is over and I want 30 more minutes to myself, or dinner time comes and I don't want to cook.
I was thinking about it last week and I think in some ways I'm trying to do more than even most homeschoolers I know. Our "schooling" takes a lot longer than any other family in our homeschooling group, if you consider time spent walking, doing movement exercises, music, arts and crafts, baking, handwork, and the more academic things.
Add to that cooking all meals, and needing them to be healthy, vegetarian/vegan, gluten-free, and not too expensive! We don't use frozen or canned vegetables, so I do a lot of chopping. I make 3 real meals a day (no cold cereal mornings or boxed dinner nights) plus snacks.
Then I want the house kept to certain standards, probably higher standards than I had when I was employing a house cleaner. I need the house to be uncluttered and picked up to keep me calm and centered.
We still haven't even added in gardening, although we have plans for at least an herb garden, sunflowers, and a pumpkin patch. We might also start a cherry tomato plant as an experiment.
Of course there is time spent doing errands, which can take us longer because we usually walk or ride our bikes. Eatign so much fresh produce there is no way I could shop every 2 weeks or every month. We need fresh bananas and tomatoes at least twice a week, sometimes more often when it is warm.
I do all of the finances, and have to keep close tabs to keep us in line with our goals. It sounds small, but it takes a few hours a week.
And focused family time, which might be an evening bike ride or walk, or could be going to BMX, playing a board game, etc.
Plus all the miscellaneous things - reading books about allergies, peak oil, sensory integration dysfunction, etc. and applying the attained information.
I never realized I would be so busy!
Sorry, that comment was so long I should have put it in MY blog!
Well Im laughing because YES I hear you!!! I take a lot of breaks, and I dont limit the time on them. Some days I need longer and so I take it, and days I dont want to cook, I dont, or I am very lame about what I do. Im trying to improve on that though. I know what you mean on each of these points, including the food issues and the house, plus all the research and such I do at night. Im truly exhausted at bed time and usually fall fast asleep in a matter of minutes. I have found a couple of things that help. My husband runs to the coop for me probabgly three times a week on his way home from work. I dont run many errands with my kids, although now that the youngest is getting bigger, I will start doing that more and more. Also for our finances I set up an "idiot account" as we call it. Basically I opened a second account and have an automatic deposit from our main account for bills mortgage etc... So I set up all our bills to come out of that account and pay automatically. I then only have to think about it maybe once a month. Also we dont use checks, they mess me up, Im not organized, nor do I care to have to balance an account. So that has seriously helped me to not have to add finances into my weekly jobs. My house SUFFERS the most, that and my attention to my husband. I am trying a waking the house routine in the morning and a putting the house to bed routine in the evening. The kids help and it is getting better. We are a very messy family, and none of it comes naturally to me, so this is an ongoing struggle. I try to not let it overwhelm my day though. From start to finish (yoga to reading) our lesson time takes about 2 hours tops. I dont do an afternoon lesson. We just dont need it right now. Maybe in the fall though. Also one of mine has Aspergers so I have found our focus is better in the morning and letting the afternoons breathe a bit more. Although we do read a story int he afternoon together (just GM and I) and we do some of our math games, which he really is liking.
I know Im jumping around a bit, but on food, I need to improve, right now my focus is breakfast. Today they did have cereal (gluten-free) and goats milk. I need balance on this, or I will just burn out. So I will make a nicer lunch today. I do one hot and the other cold, so that Im not at the stove all day. I still need to work on better dinners, but I will use frozen organic veggies from time to time, and keep some on hand so that I have that option on a hard night. Snacks here are fruit and Cliff Bars (now available at Costco for about $1.00 a bar) or I will make a shake for them in the afternoon. They also snack on cheeses quite a bit, or hummus and crackers for ME. She loves that!!!! So those arent too labor intensive for me. I give them access to it to have whenever they want, I dont have to get it for them (well I do the hummus for ME). Also they like peanut butter on crackers, which I make about three times a month (the peanut butter) using fresh peanut butter, I add to it flax seed oil and local honey (for allergies)I mix it in my mixer and put it in the fridge. So snacking on it really is a great healthy and yummy treat that I only bother with a couple times a month. I need to bake our bread, but right now Im buying it. I want to bake on Monday Afternoons, and havent fit it in yet. Only GM gets the expensive gluten-free bread. The rest get a multi-grained organic bread. I baked some in VA but Im intimidated by the altitude issue here and havent attempted much yet. Also I havent found a yeast that I like yet.
My husband does a lot int he evening too, he does the bedtime routine and so I am off-duty persay before they are all in bed. He reads to them at night, and gets them tucked in. It is good for him to have that special time and routine with them. It doesnt happen everynight, but it is goes through highs and lows. They are about to start reading The King of Ireland's Son at bed time so that will help. He also has chosen the evening kitchen clean up as his one chore he does. He does NOTHING else to help me here except for ironing his own clothes. So I dont feel at all guilty about having him help me to do the dinner dishes! :-)
Anyhow I will write more soon. But yes!!!! I know what you mean!!!
Most of our bills are on auto-pay; I think there is one I write a check for and 3 I pay online once a month (all at the same time). I just spend a lot of time entering receipts, doing the categories (so I can keep to our budget), filing, etc.
I'm going to post about the house on your other thread.
DH is a huge help in terms of dishes and keeping the kitchen clean, plus he has garbage and recycling duty, and picks up after the dog. He deep cleans on the weekends and helps with laundry if he is home when it is being done.
I think the research eats up a big chunk of time.
My oldest would definitely have been placed on the sprectrum had we pursued a diagnosis. I've had to work so hard with him to teach him social cues and sills, and still he struggles. Both boys have multiple food allergies and sensory integration dysfunction. My oldest has verbal and oral apraxia.
The lack of understanding is also hard. My mother doesn't undestand why we can't just go get a test at the doctor's office, determine allergies, and go from there. She has never heard of gluten intolerance, and I often feel that my parents think I am making it up. They thought we were weird enough before we started pursuing food allergies in DS#2.
Food is huge for us, as we mostly follow the diet advocated in Eat to Live. It's basically vegan, with a high proportion of produce and lots of it eaten raw. We don't eat a lot of grains and when we do it is better if they are whole and not processed into flour. Obviously we're adapting it some to deal with gluten free issues. Between allergies and dislikes it is hard to feed the boys, and they are so accustomed to real, homecooked meals and snacks.
I can only be thankful that they like pinto beans. I don't know what I would do if they didn't.
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