How a planner survives stay-at-home-mommyhood.

Since this is blog was never suppose to be all running... :p

Becoming a stay at home mom has been harder than I ever imagined.  I knew it would be hard, but I didn't realize HOW hard.  Not that being a working mom was a walk in the park...  they're both hard jobs, and the bottom line is that once you're a mom, you become a 24/7 "employee" to someone.  Especially when you have a baby or toddler around!  

I'm a bit, um, anal, and a tend to over-analyze & over-plan.  If you're a stay at home mom, you can see where it might get a little hard to be this kind of person & be home all day.  (If you're not a stay at home mom, imagine going from a structured job to a day full of "whatever goes".  It's hard!)  One thing I had to implement right away was a chore schedule & a weekly dinner plan.  The chore schedule helps me keep the house clean w/out having to do it all at once (although I do have to do a really good cleaning from time to time).  It's not nearly as overwhelming to keep a clean house when you only have one major chore a day! The weekly dinner plan I figure out either late Saturday or early Sunday, based on what we have to eat.  I keep these in a place we can all see (in the breakfast room window), so everyone knows what's going on.   It's nothing fancy, just on a calendar board I got at an office supply store, but it helps me SO much:

A recent addition is something I'm using to teach Kasen (he's 5) AND get us out the door on time.  Before I implemented it, we were running late every day & leaving the house tense & upset with each other.  Now, he's learning how to tell time, manage time, & stay on schedule (don't tell him he's learning anything though, that's a secret), and we're leaving the house happy & ON TIME (even early)!  I have a schedule & clock hanging right in the hall, right in front of Kasen's bedroom door.  I know what time things are suppose to happen, so when it's time for him to do something, I just remind him to go look at the clock & schedule & see if he should be doing anything.  He likes feeling in charge, and I like not arguing over getting his shoes on his feet on time.  Win, win!  I think the clock + the schedule list cost about $4.50 altogether - triple win!

On the advice of our therapist, we have instituted family rules recently too.  Luke & I came up with the most important things to us, that could be clearly defined & easily understood, I wrote up the rules poster, and then we all sat down & talked about the rules (including having Kasen give examples of each one so that we knew he understood).  If a rule is broken, a gentle reminder is given, or I may take Kasen over to the rules poster & read them to remind him of what is expected.  I'd like to have these in some cooler form, but I don't have the time or energy to be crafty right now, so this is what we have for now & it works.

The biggest problem I've found in my stay at home mom abilities, is that I tend to find myself wasting the afternoon away if I don't have a plan.  (Kasen has school in the morning) Also, I spend lots of time feeding/holding/playing with the baby & not giving Kasen as much time & attention as I'd like.  So, I've started working on having at least one specific thing I focus on teaching Kasen every day.  I know we'll at least have a good 30 min - 1 hour of learning time to play together ('cause it's not boring learning time, it's play time too!).  I hope to continue this for Graham too in a few months.  If the whole day becomes a crazy free-for-all, it's not a huge deal, but I can usually find a little block of time for at least one activity.  We have:

MATH MONDAY - playing with math in any form - fractions, counting, adding, etc

TUNES TUESDAY - music related play - singing, dancing, playing an instrument, making an instrument, etc

WORD WEDNESDAY - reading &/or writing

TOUCH THURSDAY - sensory development mixed with science

FIT FRIDAY - physical challenges - park play, running, monkey bars, etc

SKILL SATURDAY - any kind of skill we can fit in the day - chore-related or life related

SILLY SUNDAY - some kind of silly family fun

I try not to emphasize that it's learning time, but I do let him know how whatever we're doing is whatever we're focusing on that day.  ie - "it IS fun to mix cornstarch with water, and it's science also! Mixing a solid & a liquid to see what happens is something chemists do..."  etc.

One thing we did for TOUCH TUESDAY is making finger paint (look online for a recipe).  We covered the table in kraft paper (you can get a huge roll of kraft paper at Lowe's/Home Depot for less than $10) & he dug in.  (Graham played with this one too!)  He had lots of fun mixing all the colors together, then he discovered that he could cover the whole table in it & the trace pictures through the gunk.  He liked that more than actually finger painting, it was way more sensory-intense, which he prefers.  

For a MATH MONDAY, we worked on measuring/learning fractions.  He got to pour water from the 1/4 c measuring cup into the 1 c & counted how many it took to make a cup, then he did 1/2 c & 1/3 c.  The he poured water from a liquid measuring cup into several different cups to figure out how to make a full cup.  He also made it into a fun splashing party.  :p  We discussed how the fractions work & when he was totally done I had him, write his #s 0-9 out & we worked on the ones he has difficulty with.  We killed a good hour having fun AND learning.  ...then I spent a good 15 minutes cleaning up water. lol

My new job has been a huge adjustment, but the more I add structure & schedules to things, the easier it's becoming for me.  It's just who I am.  As hard as this job is, I wouldn't trade it for anything!  Being here every day, to see my children grow in physical & mental size is amazing.  This is THE hardest job I've ever had, it's the most thankless job I've ever had (and I've had some thankless jobs!), but it's also the most rewarding job I've ever had.  I'm forming helpless children into [one day]self-sufficient adults.  Amazing.