Schedule shift
This was going to be yet another griping entry. The summer schedule I planned so carefully is simply not working. The kids are bored, I’m exhausted, and we’re all too housebound. I was all set to complain about it in detail when I was forced to go out in the back yard by the screaming of children. This turned out to be a good thing. The screams were happy screams because my kids were playing with the kids of my backyard neighbor. My neighbor was out there too. I realized that her summer seemed to be going much more smoothly than mine was and so I started asking questions trying to figure out what she was doing differently.
I’ve had the days structured wrong. I’ve been trying to have the mornings be times to be at home and get work done and then afternoons available for activities. This meant that at my most fatigued time of day I was trying to entertain kids who’d already played with all their toys and games all morning. Not only that, but it was taking forever to get the work actually done because the kids had no motivation to get it done quickly. So tomorrow I’m trying out a new plan. We get up and breakfast at 8 am. Then we do housework until 9:30. At 9:30 I leave the house for an outing with whichever kids are done with their work. These will be small outings to parks, libraries, museums with no admission fees, going for a walk, etc. Any small trip that gets us out of the house in a place that lets the kids see new things and run around. Kids who don’t finish their work have to stay home with daddy (who has to do his cartooning work in the mornings.) I think that will be sufficiently motivational. It will also mean that we come home ready for some down time and happy to play with the toys and games we have here.
I don’t know if this new plan will work. But I do know that something needs to change or I’ll go crazy with two months of summer left and zero trips planned.