It's Getting There

I still don't have everything all up and running yet. I'm hoping to get the board up this weekend and really get it going next week. But I have done better in the afternoons at least with actually kind of following the plan.

Yesterday afternoon actually went really well. B kept asking what we were going to do next; he was pretty excited to have a schedule and know that there would be more. We did a game time after lunch, playing dominoes and Memory, and the kids all seemed to really like that, even if we did have to distract the 2 year old with other things so he wouldn't mess up the games. He liked participating where he could though.

After game time, we had an art time, where we all just drew and colored pictures in notebooks. I would tell them something to draw, then let them draw whatever their imagination dictated. My boys, being boys, drew monsters. With lots and lots of legs and eyes and arms. They were probably a little too realistic, as my second-oldest had a nightmare last night. And it was pretty funny to see my oldest boy's reaction when I told him to draw a rainbow. Apparently drawing rainbows is only for girls. He can like looking at rainbows, but can't like drawing them. D had no problem drawing one though. Of course, when he was younger, before he cared so much what other people thought, his favorite color was pink.

After art time, we had our story and reading time. This time it went much better, and they were back to how they usually are when it's time for stories. They were all interested and listened and helped each other pick out books. B is the only one who can read so far, so he had a good time reading some of the stories to his brothers and sister.

After we finished with story time and cleaned everything up, we all got on our shoes and got the leash on the dog and went for a walk. It was hot out and our poor gimpy dog has bad hips, so it wasn't a long walk, but the kids all came in the house very excited to be able to tell their dad how their day had gone. It was fun seeing how much they had enjoyed their day, and it gave me more motivation to keep at it.

I didn't do as well today, but we did still kept up with some of the regular activities. We didn't do as much as normal, since I had to take W to the doctor in the afternoon.

One of the main differences was that we did music time instead of art time. Again, I kept it simple, and we got out some pots and some wooden spoons and stainless spoons and a few other household objects and played the drums. We played a few games with the drumming to keep it interesting, too. When the kids started getting bored with the drums, we sang "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" so everyone could sing along. I sang them a variation to the song that I made up, and they all had me sing it over and over again. My variation goes like this:

The itsy bitsy spider crawled up _______'s leg (enter a name in the blank)
Down came his hand and brushed the spider away
When the spider recovered, it wanted to try again,
But the itsy bitsy spider tickled _______ instead.

I'm sure you can imagine the actions I do as we sing this version. My kids all like doing their part where they brush the spider off their legs, but their favorite part is the end where they all get tickled. It's amazing how often one can hear the word, "again" when doing something like this. They even had me demonstrate the song to their dad when he got home from work, which is kind of funny, since it's not the first time I've done it that way to them.

I will admit that there are several times throughout each day when I think that I can give them just a few more minutes (or even up to an hour) of their free time and I can sit and try to relax (but really, when do I ever really get to relax before bedtime?), but I've also found how good it feels when I don't give in to that thought and get up and do more structured activities with my kids. Sure, I'm tired. Sure, there are things I would like to be able to do on my own. But my kids won't stay young for very long. Before I know it, they'll be grown up and move out of the house and start families of their own. So I want to make sure I can take advantage of all the time I can get with them and hope I don't mess them up too much.

Getting Started 2

So last night after the kids were in bed, I went to the store to stock up on a few supplies so when we actually do art projects or whatever, I'll have the things we need to do them. I also got new dry erase markers for our white board and am getting closer to having everything ready to jump right in on the routines.

Unfortunately, I already am dragging my feet a bit and keep wondering why I wanted to do this in the first place. So it's a good thing I'm making myself report in this blog, or I'd probably have stopped before I started, and I still think it will help my kids be happier and will help things go smoother through the day.

I did have the kids start on a few of the things yesterday. While they usually like reading and story time, for some reason they didn't want to do it yesterday, so it took twice as long as it usually does. I do kind of expect to get some resistance to the changes, but I didn't really expect them to rebel at that particular one. I'm hoping it goes better today.

Their favorite part was the outside play time, even though they complained that it would be too hot. And yes, I usually do make them go play outside at some point during the day, so this wasn't new. I think they liked it better this time because I turned on the sprinklers and let them run through them in their clothes. They dried off after with scooter races.

So here's hoping it keeps getting smoother as we get into it and get organized better.

Getting Started

I'm creating this blog here so I have some sort of accountability for my plan. My plan is kind of a change in parenting style.

I am a stay-at-home mom to 5 kids, 4 boys and a girl. I will be the first to admit that I'm pretty lazy when it comes to parenting. Yes, I'm the mom who lets her kids watch way too much TV and play way too many video games. But I've decided to change and give my kids more structure in their day before they all get too old for it to have any affect. My kids are all pretty good for the most part, but they definitely have their moments. It doesn't help when several of them have pretty strong ADHD tendencies. And with everything I've read about ADHD, having structure is important in helping them learn to control their impulses and focus when they really need to.

I'm just now starting to get my plan in place, but it's a work in progress and I'm sure we'll have adjustments along the way. I have sketched out a rough weekly schedule with times set for certain things, such as chores, reading/story times, and meal times. And two days a week we'll have Art Day, where we do an art project of some sort together, even if it's just coloring in some notebooks, and two days a week we'll have Music Day, where we do some sort of music activity, whether it be listening to music and dancing around the room, singing songs together, or banging on the pots and pans. One day a week we'll have an outing day where we will go do some activity, like going to the zoo or the park or a museum. It's not going to be big, and it's definitely not going to be expensive. I can't afford expensive. Free is best, but we'll go for cheap too.

We have a big white board that we're going to post on the wall in our kitchen with the schedule mapped out for the kids. So they'll be able to look at the board and know what the plan is to do at any time. And hopefully it will help keep me on track too. Of course, we will be flexible. Sometimes things end up taking more time than others, but I think if we try to stick to the structure as well as we can, it will end up working out well. It will probably be a bit of a trial at first though. Kids will rebel, Mom will want to play on the computer like she usually does, all that fun stuff. I think it will be better for us all this way though. It's worth a shot anyway, right?

So my plan is to post a daily entry at the end of each day with how things went: what worked and what didn't, reactions the kids had, all that. Feel free to comment any suggestions for things to do, any words of encouragement, things that have worked for you, or something that comes to mind. Please keep it clean and keep it kind. And enjoy.