LOL/LOL: Schedules

LOL/LOL stands for Lots of Littles/Lots of Laughs. It is a blog series by moms who are overrun by small children have 3 or more little kiddos, talking about parenting, marriage, & life. After you read this post, make sure you check out Jamey's take on this same topic at Zehlahlum Family. And then please play along! Answer our questions in the comments OR blog about it and post a link in the comments.
Today we're talking schedules. Did/do you schedule your kids' days? What does your daily schedule look like? Do you do cleaning, groceries, etc, on the same days each week?

Why do I feel like every question is so complicated for me? Or maybe I just make them complicated. OK, let me start with the easy part. Yes, I have some "scheduled days" for certain tasks. For example, Mondays are sacred to me. I do everything I can to not leave the house on Mondays. Mondays are Laundry Day and Pajama Day, two things that mesh well together. Unfortunately, Mondays have also become Therapy Day for Roo, which does NOT mesh well with Pajama Day… but the Early Intervention Specialist and our therapists are getting used to seeing me in my sweats and I think they enjoy the fact that I don't feel the need to get all dolled up for them. At least, that's what I tell myself.

As for other scheduled days… Tuesday is my supper swap day, so I spend most of the afternoon cooking. And lately, Tuesday has also become grocery shopping day… so that I have food to cook that afternoon. Wednesdays are Bible study days, when I am gone almost the entire day, 8:00 AM – 9:00 PM. I try to be home for about 2 hours in the afternoon to let Monkey grab a nap, but that's about it. And Sundays are set aside for church & family. That's about it. I used to have a specific task for each day, but most of those went out the window when the baby Kangaroo joined the zoo.

On a daily basis… well, this is where I don't have an easy answer. For my older kids, I do keep a pretty regular sleep schedule/routine. 1:30 is naptime, and it ends anywhere from 2:30 to 4:00, depending on whether or not Monkey falls asleep. (Lamb doesn't really nap anymore, but she does lay down for about 45 minutes or an hour on days that she doesn't have school.) Bedtime is between 7:00 and 8:00, again depending on what happened at naptime. For Roo… oh my word, I have been wrestling with getting that kiddo on some type of nap routine. But it's not going well, and I don't really want to talk about it right now, so let's just leave it at that. K?

But for our daily non-sleep-related-routine… I can't really say that we have one right now, other than getting Lamb to & from school every day. I would like to tell you that I do housework from X to Y and spend 1 hour a day doing preschool with Monkey and I have a regular quiet time with the Lord and never miss my workout slot… but no, that's just not reality right now. But remember when I told you that I was drowning? Well, thanks to some great help and prayer support from our amazing family and friends, I have been quickly catching up on the projects that have been piling up since Roo was born. This has been helpful on a number of levels, both practical and emotional, but that's another topic for another post. Anyway, my hope is that I will be able to get the house to a good "base level" and feel like I've got my footing a bit, and then get into more of a routine with all of the stuff I just listed. So maybe we should revisit this topic in another six months, so that hopefully I can be proud of how far I've come…!

OK, friends, I'm signing off for now. Coming soon to the Zoo… Allowance: Yea or Nay? And other Lamb-related talk.

Enjoy your day! And don't forget to tell me how you handle (or don't handle!) schedules in your house! J