Our schedule

It is week 3 of our new family schedule, and some of it is working, really really well, and some of it feels a bit forced still. I wanted to do it for a full month, and we are almost there, before we started tweeking it. Here is a rough layout of what we've got goin' on:

• Monday: Homeschool day, little lessons I have come up with alongside some of our book stuff. (Sorry to be so vague, its been a weird year). For example, today we did varying age appropriate levels of learning and discussing our new phone number, address, and played post office, and the older kids worked on their blog as well as reading two chapters in our "Health" book--a cool kids book about how our bodies work. Steve worked 7 to 5, so we did our "4 O'Clock Clean Up", and I had dinner ready when he got home. After dinner the big kids cleared up and I nursed Eska and got out of there for Mama Go To The Teahouse Again (where I am right now!) I only stay out an hour or two and hopefully return to most kids all gone to beddy bye and a quiet sane scene. You never know though. Could be 3 littles screaming and 2 bigs covered in mud digging up bugs.

• Tuesday: Field Trip, Steve works 9 to 6, has guys over for gaming in the evening. (they are heavy into Euro-Games, which are mostly head-hurty board games about ancient wars and battles and taking over countries and kingdoms and such. Super intelligent stuff that I can't enjoy no matter how much of a super hotty geek wife I would be if only I could dig it. But I cannot. So they play. This is also a night we have been apt to get DelTaco, because they have 33 cent tacos on Tuesday nights---yum--dinner for 6, way under 10 bucks!
• Wednesday: Kinda the same as Monday, except we will do a "craft" during homeschool time. I can go out if I need, I have dinner ready nice n early, etc.
• Thursday: Steve works long, 9am to 8pm, so this one can be a doozy. We are planning on housecleaning in the morning so we dont have to all weekend as much and then going to the library and possible walking around our new town's vibrant downtown right after an early supper of "kid food". I am going to rent the older kids a nice movie from the library (wholesome, free...) so that everyone an be "in bed" (even if not asleep, out of the living room) for when Steve gets home for a little Mom and Dad Date Night involving some adult food--LOL--I dont know if this makes sense to all of my readers, but when you have babies, tots, picky vegetarians, etc, there becomes a time when one set of family gets Pokemon Macaroni and apples with fruit punch and another set gets Blackened Salmon and Red Wine. 'Nuff said.
• Friday: Starting this week, we are going to be participating, if not hosting, homeschool Park Day, as advertised (by me) on our county-wide homeschooling yahoo group message board. We are hoping to spend the entire afternoon in the company of cool families under a shady tree. this is more of an event for the moms than the kids, but I hope everyone enjoys their socialization! I have made the bold move of just announcing that this is an event, and that it shall occur at the park in front of my house. I have offered to anyone who would like to, to use our bathroom, fridge, whatnot since our park has no restroom. I am deciding on my ground rules right now, and might even post them on the front door and in the bathroom--because I will not allow this to become some thing where some kids want to sit in the air conditioning playing gameboys without any adults...or what if something seemed like it was "missing" and then there was weirdness...so I will need to define the rules and have them be known from day one. The good thing about the old homeschool park day tat was at a different park was that one of my *ahem* unnamed children who is not very outdoorsy would whine about being "tired" or "hot" and I could say oh, cut it out. Now with the lure of home right there, we are gonna have to discuss. But anyhow, for the rest of summer, weather permitting, Friday will be this.
• Saturday, every other one Steve works until 2 pm. On the ones where he is home, we will all go to Farmers Market. On the ones where he works, he might take them to a cheap-show movie. I am pretty burnt out by the Saturday he works.
• Sunday open and free, except for grocery shopping and prepping for the week aka making sure there are no laundry mountains, etc.

Well, thats it! Some things we want to work on are (for 12 years now!) Me AND Steve going out TOGETHER---wacky wacky I know, and how to balance the need for sleep with the need/want to hang out late without kids and hang out. Eska has been wrecking that lately, though, and I think the 3 bedroom house is going to be somewhat trickier than we thought, but only for a while. Where we have visions of a girls' bedroom, a boys' bedroom, and Mama and Daddy bedroom, (thus the design of the majority of houses) admittedly we are more like a jumble of semi-co-sleeping, camping out on couches, taking shifts, a crib and a playpen in our room....sigh. Probably shoulda bought that king sized bed or two back in '97, but now...I'd say less than a year from now Charlie will be a going-potty boy who sleeps in a bed, not a crib, and Eska will be in a crib of her own in Greta's room...but that eliminates late night TV watching, drawing, etc for Greta....

Well it will all work out. But thats a little slice o life from our family to yours right now. Please share what works/worked for you and yours?!