Mixin' It Up...Not So Good

Since we started homeschooling this year, I've had to put myself on a pretty rigid schedule. I found that if I didn't completely keep up with the dishes and laundry, Alyssa's school work fell behind. On Monday and Thursday I wash diapers, Tuesday is Brian's and my laundry day, Wednesday is the kids' laundry day, and Friday I wash sheets and towels (as necessary). I've been waking up at six o'clock every morning to exercise and shower, and hopefully be dressed and ready for the day by the time the kids get out of bed.

For a while things were working great. Then the kids started to realize that Mom got up way before them, and they decided to take turns getting up early to thwart my alone time. A couple weeks ago, when my alarm went off, I thought, "Why do I get up this early to be up before the kids, when the kids wake up anyway?" and I turned off my alarm, rolled over, and went to sleep. Five minutes later, Brian's alarm went off, and he promptly pushed the Snooze button (because that's what he does) and went back to sleep himself.

That morning I started a two-week run of not setting my alarm, staying in bed while Brian showered and got ready, getting up to say prayer with him and send him off to work, and then staying in bed until the kids woke up, which ended up being usually around seven-thirty. I started exercising with the kids either exercising with me, or watching me from the couch, saying, "Mom, you're supposed to have your feet in the air. Higher. I know it's hard, but you can do it." And then after pouring bowls of Marshmallow Mateys for the kids, I would run upstairs for a quick shower, then after I was ready we would start school.

Overall, it only put us behind our school schedule by a half-hour, but it really messed with my dishes and laundry schedule. Instead of sorting and starting laundry at seven o'clock, I was starting around ten, and that meant that it didn't always make it into the dryer or out of the dryer. After the first week the kids started living from a pile of clean clothes sitting in a laundry basket on top of Ethan's dresser. When one of them needed socks, I would run downstairs to another clean, but unsorted basket of clothes to hunt down a matching pair. Because I was getting lazy in other things, Alyssa and I started getting lazy with her school work schedule to where she was learning that she could argue and whine instead of doing her work, and if she whined long enough, eventually the time to get her work done would disappear and she wouldn't have to do it. And she's not the only one who's been lazy. Yesterday while Alyssa was at MCP, I didn't even start the laundry or clean up after breakfast. I read a book, and when the characters in the book made brownies, I decided to make brownies, too. Then I spent the afternoon on the computer dreaming about houses, and didn't even think about dinner until Brian called to say he was on his way home.

So last night I decided that we need to get back on a good schedule, but this morning when my alarm clock went off, I decided that it's going to be a modified schedule. I will stay in bed while Brian gets up to shower, but I've decided to get up to exercise when he leaves for work. That way I'll be sleeping in a little bit, but I'll still be up and getting the morning started early enough not to effect other things.

I don't know why I'm sharing this. It's not particularly interesting, but it's just been on my mind. Believe me, it is not in my nature to want to do laundry every day or to keep the kitchen constantly clean, but I've found that striving for that is necessary to my sanity. Funny, huh? And even though I generally keep the house clean during the week, I take the weekends off, and by Sunday evening it usually looks like a tornado came through, and then Monday morning I start all over again. Another funny thing I've found is that when I'm closely following our cleaning and school schedule, I actually have more time to work on my own projects and to spend fun time with the kids.