I have never been a highly scheduled person. I dabbled with the baby feeding schedules, but for some reason I could never get the babies to understand my plan.

“No, no, no, little one. You see, right here on the 9:00 hour, the schedule clearly states that you are to be asleep.   WHY YOU NO SLEEP?????”

I get it. All schedules must have wiggle room. Life doesn’t go as planned. Ever. Well, sometimes, maybe?

I married into a family of the most scheduled people I’ve ever met. I’m going to tell you a story before I get to my point here because this story is relevant and unbelievable. Seriously.

Nonna and Aunt Janet came to visit us in 2010. Joshua was turning 5, Caleb was 4, and Daniel was in utero.  We lived in Washington, D.C., not in the suburbs, but actually in the city.

Of course, Nonna came with an itinerary for all that she and Janet intended to do during their visit. Upon their arrival, they discovered that our little boys were super sick with strep throat.

Nonna was undeterred. “Okay. So on Thursday, we’ll do the Space Museum. Then on Friday, I figure we’ll be sick with strep throat. We’ll take a day or two off to rest. On Sunday, we’ll hit the Holocaust Museum and Mount Vernon. Monday we’ll see Arlington, and Tuesday we’ll get ready for our trip back.”

I kid you not, folks, they developed strep throat as scheduled. Poor Aunt Janet, who came down with her sickness in the middle of the Space Museum. Let’s just say that for some people, strep throat is also a puke bug. It was a trip to remember.

Were our travelers caught unawares with this sickness? Heck no. That’s the power of the plan!

My friend Kim convinced me to buy this book:

This came in handy for several reasons:

1. Schedule suggestions
2. THE KIT!!! It includes this sticky tack stuff, which is a must have for the final color-coded-schedule building step.
3. But the amount of priority questioning that has ensued from working on my family schedule still has my head spinning! Talk about staring your choices in the face!

How to Build Your Schedule:

#1. Make an exhaustive list of every single thing that you need to accomplish during the average weekday. If your family has sports 3 nights a week, include that. Don’t forget to include the fact that it takes 30 minutes to get ready for said activities, 15 minutes to drive there, and 15 minutes to get home. All together, one soccer team may actually add up to 5 hours of your week, like Caleb’s team!

Then break that into 30 minute or hour increments. Here’s an example of my worksheet:

my daily activity worksheet

You may find it awfully hard to get everything into 24 hours. Lightbulb moment that you’re trying to do too much….Just sayin’. I certainly have that problem.

That was not my final draft.

#2. Do that worksheet for each family member.

Consult the kids to ask them what is important to them. Make sure they are having time to practice whatever their craft or skill is. I tried to build in time for bicycles, drawing, and baseball in the yard.

#3. The fun part: Get your kit out. Choose 1 color for each family member. Write all the activities on the appropriate size squares. They come in 30 minute squares and hour-long squares.

#4. Cut out the squares, and arrange them on your master schedule: 3 legal size papers with time slots. Use the sticky tac on the back of each square to hold it temporarily in place. 

I did John David’s first. Younger children have the most needs to consider. Older children have harder set times, though. If soccer is at 5, you can’t really move that square around.

Here’s ours:

The morning schedule. This works for 3/5 of our weekdays.

Midday Schedule: Also works for only 3/5 of our days.

Technically, each evening is different for us, so I tried to allow for that with “Soccer/AWANA/Family time”

Now that I’ve gotten all of this done, soccer season is wrapping up, and we switch to the basketball schedule. I don’t think it will change too much, though.

I will warn you. This activity may lead you to question EVERYTHING in your life.

I kept thinking, “Wait a minute. This is crazy. Something more must be delegated!”

Or “Why do I blog at all? Should I drop the blog?”

“How clean does the house really need to be?” *chuckle*  Alan does his share of the cleaning, believe me!

How the schedule has helped so far:

I love that I have a plan in place. Also, I don’t have to be the bad guy with the kids.

“Mom, is this the last thing we have to do??”

“No. Go look at the schedule.”

“Awww man!!”

“Sorry. It’s on the schedule.”

Also, I have gotten more done at school. When the schedule wasn’t written down, by 1:30 I start to run out of energy and say things like, “Eh, you’ve done enough, go ahead.” The schedule holds my feet to the ground with, “Oh, yeah, you really should do handwriting.”

They should. So should I, but that’s why adults get to use computers.

The schedule also helped me find a way to alternate seat work with fun. I don’t know why I’m such a hands-on teacher, but I’ve just accepted that as my teaching style. I’d love to be the mom that has the kids working quietly while I tend to the house, but that’s just not me. I walk them through division, I read to them because I love it, and I hover nearby as much as I can. That’s my teaching style. We talk all day long.

Meanwhile, the schedule says that right now I’m sitting on my porch, when in fact, we are all inside. I’m procrastinating letting JD up from nap while I blog. 

I mean, schedules are a wonderful TOOL, but let’s not marry our schedules.

Hope you all have a good time this weekend, passing out candy to adorable little trick-or-treaters! We will have a Darth Vader, a Boba Fett, a Snoopy, and a Yoda. I promise to take photos, if you promise to do the same!

The post How to Build a Family Schedule That Works appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

My first one was ridiculously over-zealous:

I’ve scratched some of that mess out and shortened it and replaced as much as possible with “Sit on the porch and watch Daniel ride his trike.”

However, a TRULY REALISTIC schedule would look more like this:

6:00 Begin hitting snooze button….

6:30 Get out of bed. Take quick walk.

6:45 Argue with Alan over which is quicker: Keurig or coffee pot, guzzle coffee, change poopy diaper, run upstairs to try to put make-up on my face.

8am Run out the door for my 8:00 appointment. Haha, nah, I’m not QUITE that bad, but I do typically allow myself 10 minutes for each 20 minute drive that I take.

9am: Arrive home, thank Alan for cleaning up the house and making coffee. Take boys for walk.

9:30: Drill the boys on information they’ll never use after college. Bwahahahaha But if they want to GO to college, this information is useful, I’m telling you!!

10:00 Play math ‘games’ with Caleb, hoping my use of the word ‘games’ will help him stop pretending to fall asleep.

10:30 Referee whoever is arguing. Okay, everyone, let’s go to the library. Off we go. Did everyone pee? Where are your shoes? I’ll go get JD some socks. No, you can’t bring chips. Here’s a book bag for everyone. Put your books in YOUR book bag. My back is struggling here.

11:45 Arrive home with 50 billion books to read, tired because I forgot to take my stroller to the library, and we are SO HUNGRY.  Shove tons of food down my throat because I’m starving, and I forgot to eat breakfast. Feed the children, clean up 100 tiny pieces of cereal that JD accidentally spilled in the floor….3 hours ago….but hey, at least I finally remembered to clean it up.

12:00 Put JD down for a nap. Wait for him to hug everyone 5 times first….

12:15 Sort of clean up lunch dishes.

12:30 Read to children. Do more teacher stuff: handwriting, geography, etc., etc.

1:30 Reading tutor arrives. Chat. Make us more coffee.

1:45 Do pre-school with Daniel, quietly, trying not to interrupt the excellent learning going on in the other room.

2:30 Remember that I never started the crock pot this morning. Also, I’m starving again. Sit on the porch and watch the kids ride bikes while I stuff my face.

3:00 Wonder how many times a week it’s okay to order pizza….Convince a kid to go wake up JD.

3:30 Update my blog.

4:30 Coral the children, get socks and shoes on everyone, and set out for Caleb’s soccer practice. Don’t forget your ball! Let’s take water! Let’s take snacks! Yes, I’m hungry again.

4:50 Set out on foot for Caleb’s practice. Drown in sweat because it’s actually 80 something degrees today. Stupid global warming.

5-6pm Try to keep my little boys happy on the tiniest playground ever.

6:00 Soccer parent meeting

6:30 Finally arrive home and face the fact that I did not cook supper….Feed everyone junk from the freezer.

7:00 Sit on the sofa and wonder why I don’t have more energy.

7:30 Alan and I rally ourselves to DO BEDTIME WITH FOUR KIDS.

4 baths. 4 sets of pajamas. 4 stories. We’re so crazy.

9:00 Go downstairs and stare at dishes in sink. Try to I Dream of Jeannie blink them away. It never works… Stumble through a few chores.

10:00 Head upstairs. To shower or not to shower, that is the question……

Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I just remembered the sweaty soccer practice. I PROMISE that I WILL shower.

Okay, most of that is just what REALLY DID happen today. But it’s only 4:30, so I still have to go do the sweating, the tiny playground, and the facing dinner failure part….

Every parent needs this sign!!!

I’m happy, though. I know I don’t sound like it, but this is fun. I should also mention that I answer some sort of question, sometimes from a child, sometimes from a well-meaning adult, every 5 minutes. I need to make myself a “No questions at this time sign” and wear it around my neck.

Okay, Daniel is here, and I think he just confessed to putting a fruit snack wrapper in the toilet. And with that, I’d better go rally the troops for soccer practice in the scorching sun.

Roll Tide.

The post What a truly realistic schedule would look like appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Tonight the main thing my brain is stuck on is this:  Why can’t there be more hours in the day?

I want to do it all. Every single thing. I want to wake up early and stay up late. I want to read my Bible before the day hits me in the face. I want to homeschool, have a neat and tidy house, and maintain a blog successfully–all at once. I want to stop and smell the roses. What roses? I keep forgetting to notice…

JD woke me up twice last night, for no obvious reason, so I was April-on-the-verge-of-total-melt-down today.

Tomorrow’s Friday, ya’ll! So at least there’s that!

I read this blog post about “Lazy Homeschooling”. I was like “Whaaa?” It was a very well written article where the author proclaimed that her children can teach themselves, and she is free to write and enjoy life.  I guess I’m living in an alternate universe from the one that she is enjoying. My children have to be watched constantly. Caleb needs to be taught how to read. Daniel is ALWAYS in my lap, and if he’s not, then he is in another room locking the door, which by the way, can only be unlocked from the inside of the room.

Do you know how many bobby pins I’ve gone through this week, thanks to Dan’s new hobby?

If I leave the older two at their desks for very long, I return to some sort of Karate Kid reenactment, not kids spontaneously building a model of the solar system.

So I can’t help it. I NEED the schedule. They need the rules and the behavior chart. I NEED the curriculums. Maybe when I’m more experienced I will be able to chill more. Man, I hope so.

I always said I would never never ever want to be a mom with four kids + a full time job. Sorry, working moms, but that looks way too stressful to me. I want to live to be old. I’m not one of these that thrives on the work stress.  Now I’m a teacher. I’m up late grading papers, blogging, and making lesson plans, rocking babies, and promising Caleb that there is no such thing as MothMan.

Moth Man? Let me just say: Do not borrow the book United Tweets of America from the library, where your kids will spot Moth Man on the West Virginia page. Then you might, very stupidly, agree to find out what a Moth Man is, then let your boys watch a History Channel special on him….

I am paying for this mistake. I don’t know if Caleb will ever be able to go to sleep tonight.

I’ve been reading in Proverbs this week. I’m still doing the read through the Bible in a year thing. I’m a bit concerned. This is September, and Proverbs does not appear to be but halfway through……oh well. We’ll call my plan the read your Bible through in a year and a half plan.

“But those who plan what is good find love and faithfulness.”  Proverbs 14:22

“All hard work brings a profit.”  Proverbs 14:23

“Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest.” Proverbs 14:4  Thank you for that one, http://fullmanger.wordpress.com/2014/08/22/lets-get-started/

“An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.”  Proverbs 13:25

Lord, help me to be kind, and please grant me rest. 🙂 I hope you all get some rest too!!!

The post Time Deprived appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.