Here are the boys at the end of their first day of school. Oliver is making the face for "come on mom, just let me get in the car" which is better than the face he had on at the beginning of the first day of school. Needless to say he is not great at change and new things, in particular new school years. So there was some resistance and some strong-arming to get him into his classroom, but once there he was just fine. Brenden acted genuinely excited about going back to school, although, poor guy, sometimes it's hard to know how much he's just trying to compensate for Oliver's attitude.
They are sporting their new first-day-of-school shirts, which has become our tradition and answer to back-to-school shopping. My mom never let us do back to school shopping, and I find myself following in her footsteps on this one. The weather is still very summery here, so their existing wardrobes are just fine for the first couple months. But they did each get to pick out a new name-brand tshirt, which they were very excited about.
I might have been the one most excited about the start of the new school year, and as such I was determined to make the most of it. Here are some of our successes of the day:
- In spite of the early protests, Oliver did go to school and had no trouble once he was in his classroom. I only sat outside for a half hour.
- When I got home, Scott was fixing a gourmet breakfast for June. Per her request, he made crepes, and then upon discovering we were out of spray whipped cream, he found some heavy whipping cream and a recipe and whipped some up himself.
- I made all the beds and had the house straightened by 10am.
- June and I had a good time going on an airplane to the beach; ordering pizza, cookies & pink lollypops on the phone; and doing singing and dancing shows.
- Put dinner in the crock pot by noon.
- Picked up the boys from school on time and was met with relatively happy countenances (see photo above) and reports of a good day.
- June, Huck & I all took a nap on my bed together.
- Got homework, reading, and practicing done before dinner.
- Had a pre-planned, non-frozen, homemade dinner with at least some nutritional value at decent hour.
- 3 oldest kids took baths.
With this new school year there are a few new goals I'm setting for our family (well, mostly for myself), all of which have to do with time management.
Time Management Goal #1: Get to school on time (i.e. 10 minutes early)
7:30 parents wake up; make sure boys are awake & getting dressed
7:45 fix breakfast
8:00 eat breakfast
8:10 out the door
Time Management Goal #2: Homework/Reading/Practicing before dinner
We failed miserably at keeping up any reading habits over the summer. Turns out my boys are not huge readers on their own, so need additional encouragement from us. We had gotten in the habit of reading just a bed time, but bedtime is already complicated (and usually late) enough that that just doesn't work anymore. So dedicated reading time in the afternoon will be required, which means more limited TV time. I generally have liked giving the boys 30-60 minutes of after school detox time in front of the TV before making them work on homework, but once the TV is on, it is just so hard to remember to turn it off. So if that keeps being a problem I guess we'll have to go to a no-TV on weekdays rule like I had when I was growing up -- but I'm not quite ready to do that yet. I can be more disciplined about limits.
Along with homework & reading time there is music practicing that needs to happen more regularly. Brenden has opted to put piano on hold and try out the guitar. Ideally I'd like him to do both, but two instruments might just be more than I can handle, so for now it's just guitar. So once reading & homework is done, then he has to practice guitar before he can turn on the TV or play video games again.
Time Management Goal #3: Dinner
Due to recent events named Huck, I've gotten off track of my previous goals of doing better at cooking and we've been back to individually prepared frozen dinners for everyone every night. I hate that and need to do better (Oprah & Dr. Oz told me so).
Before 3pm: have a dinner plan & shopping list
3pm: pick up kids and stop by grocery store if necessary
5pm: prepare dinner
6:30pm: dinner is served
Time Management Goal #4: Bedtime
No more 10pm summer bedtime -- we've got to get back on track with 8pm bedtime. Mom & Dad need more grown-ups-only time.
6 comments:
I'm tired just reading about it all, but totally agree The school year is a great time to start anew. I agree about the TV limits, and we did have the rule of no TV on weeknights when we were kids, which is impressive to remember, and maybe I should try that one out here. I'm glad Oliver went to school and was smiling at the end of the day. (And I'm glad you and the little ones took a nap!)
Seems to me that, in terms of Getting Things Done, you had a perfect day: Play AND nap AND clean AND dinner? Seriously, that's incredible.
And those are great goals. So far (three days??) we've had success with reading & music practice before playing, but I, too, like to give the kids some down-time before they begin on homework...it's not always easy (for me, any way) to be so disciplined, but it's such a great feeling to have everything Done before dinner.
your success story is making me excited for the start of our school year. just a few beach days left... then reality. :)
I have to say that I am jealous that your kids are already back in school. we don't start until Sept 8th! Too late if you ask me.
Good luck with the goals. I am with you on the dinner thing.
YA! I love routine. I need some more of that in my life too. Good luck!
I love those days when everything seems to work out just the way you want and need it to. Making dinner is so hard. Reading this post is motivating to try harder.
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