Sunday, October 11, 2015

Fall into a routine

The beginning of the school year has already come and gone.  In fact, it's almost half way through the semester.  But it has taken us this long to get into a routine.  The boys and I spend all summer doing things at our leisure.  Occasionally we have to be somewhere at a specific time for a camp or lunch date, but otherwise we can take our time.  So when school starts the three of us are cranky!  In fact my husband hates August/September.  He says we're all in a bad mood until we can finally settle into a routine.

Granted it doesn't always take us this long to set into a routine but we moved, started a new school, and mommy added a new prep and class to her class load.  We went from living in a neighborhood with little to no kids my boys' ages and now the neighborhood is chalk full of kids of all ages. We love it, but we had to learn some time management of when to play and when to get homework done and when to go to activities.  The boys saw kids outside and clambered to get out the door.  AWESOME! Right?  Yes and No.  Homework time became a fight.  Finally, I put a checklist together to work on their spelling, math and other work.  I also had to put my foot down about playing with friends on soccer practice days.  I had to limit the play time to 30 minutes and only allow them to get bikes out or one toy and they had to stay in our yard.  They aren't happy about being stuck in the yard, but trying to gather them together became a headache on practice days.

Finally after establishing these we have finally gotten into a routine and even have time to eat dinner as a family and, maybe, watch a TV show or play a game together.