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.