Surving the Bedtime Routine

I have talked about this before, and I will say it again. Bedtime is not my favorite time of the day.

I mean, the part where the kids are asleep and peace and quiet has settled in for the night - the part where my husband and I can actually have a grown-up conversation without having to spell things (only now we have a speller, so we have to use pig latin or something equally ridiculous) - that part I like. It's the part leading up to it where we run into trouble.

I'm not a fan of just sending my kids off to put themselves to bed, because I think it should be a special time to talk and pray with them and tell stories. The problem, though, is that I don't want it take all night.

My kids are experts at sucking a whole evening away at bedtime, whether it's dragging their feet to brush teeth and put jammies on or protesting that we forgot to tell the required stories in the correct order.

The solution to our bedtime routine, came from husband, who is not only a genius, but also quite handsome, don't you think:


His solution - like most solutions he comes up with after I trudge through some horrible routine for months and then swear I can't take it anymore - is maddeningly simple.

At 7:45 pm the kitchen timer gets set and at 8:15 pm the timer rings and Phil and I kiss them goodnight and walk out of their bedrooms for the evening. After that, we use the rule of the three B's we borrowed from our friends: If you come out of your room, it better be Broken, Bleeding, or Burning. (Can't you just feel the love?)

When the timer starts, they scurry off to put on pajamas, brush teeth, etc. and we tell them if there is time left after all that gets done, we can lay down with them and tell them a story. It's amazing, really. What they used to drag out all night to accomplish, now gets done in about 72 seconds.

Yes, it still takes a half an hour out of my life every night, but I know they will grow up before I know it and no longer need me to lay down with them or tell them stories. I'll be the one begging, "Please come and talk to me a few more minutes!"

Okay, for the record, I wanted the timer to only be set for fifteen or twenty minutes, but my husband convinced me that thirty minutes would be more fair.

He's so smart.

Next week, maybe I'll tell you about his brilliant potty-training invention.

Surviving the Dog Days of Summer, Part 2

Some of my goals for the summer are: clean out and reorganize some scary closets, work on training the kids to help more around the house, keep their brains from turning into mush, and try to sneak in some memorization work we never finished during the school year.

My kids do not share this vision for our summer.

At all.

Their goals for the summer include taking it easy, eating ice cream daily, and having as much fun as possible.

It's not that I blame them, really. I'm just trying to figure out how to find the balance.

Even though we take a break from homeschooling, I have realized the importance of keeping a little structure and routine going for the sake of sanity, while also trying to allow for fun.

I decided to borrow a very popular idea from the public library and create my own "Summer Memorization Program."

I made a game board on construction paper of all the letters of the alphabet, with the words "PRIZE" inserted every five letters or so. We are working on memorizing a scripture verse to correspond to every letter of the alphabet (For example: A: As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD, B: Believe the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, etc.) and I figured that would sneak in a little review of letter sounds for Caleb as well as Bible memory work.

Rather than toys for prizes, I decided to reward them with fun activities. For example: A date with Mommy for ice cream, a date with Daddy for ice skating, a family dinner at our favorite pizza place, a camping trip in the backyard, etc.

I also decided to emphasize cooperation over competition by only making one gameboard for both of them to share.

I hope that doesn't backfire. I can still remember when one of my elementary teachers was trying to motivate us to learn our multiplication tables. She paired students up and promised a pair of kites to whichever team learned them first.

A good idea, except that I really wanted that kite and my partner could have cared less. He totally blew it off and would not try no matter how hard I tried to convince him.

Not that I'm still holding a grudge or anything.

Surviving the Dog Days of Summer, Part 1

It is only the beginning of a summer that promises to be inhumanly hot and last 2-3 times longer than it should.


And I must tell you, the walls are starting to close in.

Sometimes my kids are really good at entertaining themselves - using their imaginations and playing together.


And sometimes they're not.

Sometimes, I can throw out some art supplies and they can stay busy and creative all afternoon.

And sometimes it's just an enormous mess that makes it's way all over the house.

Over the first couple weeks of our summer break, as the temperatures climbed over 100 degrees, these are some of the things that started to drive me crazy:

1. The whining whenever it's suggested that anyone help around the house
2. The belief that Mommy is responsible for providing exciting entertainment at all times
3. The unwillingness to read or do anything else that could remotely be related to schoolwork
4. An inability to be patient with one another
5. Constant and scathing criticism that the snacks I prepare lack imagination.

So I took my problems to God and began to pray about them in a very spiritual way. Something along the lines of, "Dear Lord, I'm thinking about running away from home so please help!"

As a result, there have been a couple of things we started that I thought I might pass along. Here is one of them:

Big Kids in Charge of Storytime

Grace and Caleb are pretty excited about being put in charge of a preschool/storytime for their little brother. They are the teachers (but I am the principal) and every week they sit down and plan out what stories they are going to read Joshua and what songs they would like to teach him.

Oh, and what snacks they're going prepare, because that's their department now.

Grace lists what things they need from the grocery store or the library for the week and then runs storytime for about a half hour every morning.


Joshua enjoys all the attention, Grace and Caleb get to develop some leadership skills and practice patience with a sometimes less-than-cooperative student, Grace practices reading with expression for the enjoyment of others, and - best of all - I get a little break.

Another Great Idea by Grace

It is bedtime again, and Grace is again requesting a Bible story "...and make sure that it's one I've never heard before!"

And I'm tired. And I'm kind of wondering how this little girl who loves Bible stories and is an amazing little independent reader now, could possibly be motivated to read the Bible for herself.

"Well, you tell me the stories, so I don't need to read them," she reasons.

"How do you know I'm getting them right?"

She looks at me. She's not quite old enough yet to realize how much I don't know. But she's getting there fast.

Without really meaning to, I begin to give her a little speech about why it's important to know what the Bible says. I tell her that when temptation and lies come to us, there is sometimes just enough truth to make it sound okay, and we have to really know the truth so that we aren't deceived.

It is, I think, a fine little speech. And it appears to be sailing right over her little seven-year-old head.

She looks at me and I can imagine that in her head, my voice sounds not unlike the voice of all the adults on Charlie Brown movies: "Mwa mwa, mwa mwa, mwa mwa...."

Or maybe not.

She gets up and brings her Bible over. "How about this," she suggests. "When you tell me a Bible story, tell it mostly right but tell one little thing wrong. Then show me where it is and I'll read it and figure out which part is wrong."

Not a bad idea.

After doing this for a week or so, I have discovered several benefits. It gets Grace to open the Bible, it teaches her good reading skills, she gets double exposure to a passage, through hearing and reading, and, because she's such a sharp little thing, it really keeps me accountable to be reading the Bible. (As usual, God brings the thing I want to work on with my kids back to something I need to work on myself - Why does it always gotta be like that?)

The Family Vacation

Let me just say that it was not MY idea.

In fact, I presented my husband with a long list of reasons we should not take a family vacation.

"Do you have any idea how much stuff we would have to take - how long it will take to pack and unpack it all?" I asked when I found I could no longer ignore his hints about taking a beach vacation.

I mean, I was having enough trouble keeping my ahead above water with our crazy life at home. I wasn't sure I had it in me to take this show on the road yet.

I was convinced that our disaster-prone two-year-old would almost certainly get lost on the beach, or perhaps even find his way over the railing of the hotel balcony.

"It will not be relaxing," I assured Phil, citing the very real possibilities of sunburns, destroyed hotel property, and sand in so many body crevices it wouldn't all be found for months.

"And you know he won't sleep for us there."

Phil considered that one for a while.

Now, I love vacations as much as the next person. I personally have many wonderful memories of family vacations from when I was a kid.

It wasn't however, until I became a parent of young children myself that I recalled how tired my parents sometimes looked on vacation, and how impatience crept into their voices as we fought in the backseat surrounded by all manner of junk and repeatedly inquired as to how much longer it was going to take to get there.

Phil was right, though. If we had the opportunity to enjoy time at the beach as a family, we should certainly do it.

So we loaded up and set off to make some memories.



In the end, neither Phil or I would call it relaxing. Getting ready to go to the beach each morning was no small accomplishment. There were 20 limbs to slather with sunscreen, and then swimsuits, hats, glasses, towels, chairs, umbrella, sand toys, snacks, diapers, etc. etc. to dig out of the chaos of the room.

At this point, someone would inevitably rub sunscreen in their eyes and begin writhing on the floor in agony and tears.

Finally, an hour or two after we started the process, we would lumber out to the beach and set up camp, just in time for someone to announce, "I have to go to the bathroom!"

Beaches, I've discovered, often attract an interesting mix of people, and this one was no exception. There are plenty of young families watching their children play in the waves as their babies eat sand. Situated next to them are tattoo-adorned individuals, many of whom are concerned with weighty worldly matters, such as experimenting with how many parts of speech certain four-letter words can serve as.

We got to have some lovely conversations about drugs and alcohol with Grace, who is now old enough to be very aware of things around her, and wondering why scruffy men occasionally shuffle by shouting fiercely at no one in particular. (For that matter, why is Mommy often muttering to herself?)

Through all this, I was reading a book written by a mother of four children, who encourages overwhelmed mothers to live in and celebrate the moment. There is no guarantee, she reminds us, that we will all be here next year, or even next week.

I am thankful for that reminder. I didn't have my camera with me as often as I should have to snap every memorable moment, but I saved some of the images in my mind.

I can still see my kids standing on the beach late one afternoon as the sun sparkled off the water. Amid all the skin on the beach, their sun-conscious mother had them dressed in rashguards, oversized hats, and sunglasses. They were dancing and jumping up and down gleefully, shouting out cheers for their daddy who was marching nobly off to do something worth watching: he was going to attempt surfing.

Their excitement was simply uncontainable as they grabbed hands and danced around with surf splashing at their feet. As their Daddy became another dot beyond the waves, they eventually wandered off to negotiate over sand-encrusted cotton candy, furtively attempt to pee in the sand without anyone noticing, or become inextricably wound up in kite string.

At the end of the day, Caleb declared: "This is the best day of my life! When I grow up, I'm going to tell my kids about this day! Aren't you, Dad?"

I am happy to report that even though we did not relax and sleep in every day we had a great time together as a family.


And no one got sunburned.

A Day In the Life...

In the few years that I've been homeschooling, I've noticed a few things.

One thing is this: the hardest part isn't figuring out which curriculum to use or how to get your kids to learn things (that actually happens pretty easily).

The hardest part is figuring out how to get your day into a workable routine - how to get school done while keeping little ones out of trouble AND remember to spend quality time with them AND get the laundry done AND nurture each child's spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical growth AND find a little quiet time for your own sanity, all while maintaining a healthy marriage, an intimate walk with God, and a warm, loving home that is just clean enough to keep Child Protective Services away.

The other thing I've learned is this: it's impossible to get it all done, but it's easy to get depressed thinking that everybody else does.

So in the interest of full-disclosure, I'm sharing a day in the life of our very real family, as well as a few little things we've discovered that work for us:


1. Spend time with the youngest first

I was given this advice by homeschool moms older and wiser than me: Because the older children get most of your attention during the day, spend time with the youngest child first.

This is not a problem in my house because my little one gets up long before anyone else in the house would even consider opening their eyes (fortunately it's gotten a little better since we've found our sleep solution). Anyway, he and I usually have "coffee" together in the morning.



2. Four Befores

These are four chores that must be done (with a happy heart!) before breakfast. Every family has different morning chores they teach their kids to do first thing, but ours are:

1. Make your bed
2. Get dressed
3. Pick up your room
4. Pray for your day

They really do pretty well with it, and sometimes even remember their chores when we are away from home:



3. Devotions

After breakfast we have devotions and then everyone "writes" in their journals, even the little ones:



Now lest you think we are a super-spiritual family, I will give you an example of a discussion that we had one morning when one of my children was three.

Me: Tell me about what you drew.
Child: Oh, it's a goat
Me: A goat, hmm?
Child: Yes, well, I think... (brow furrowed)... I'm pretty sure God is telling me to worship a goat.

Sometimes they get it. Sometimes they don't.

4. School



After we clean up the kitchen from breakfast (and everyone has a specific job to help with that), we spend usually an hour and half to two hours on school. I have a curriculum I am using with Grace, and Caleb usually sits with us soaking it all up like a sponge while he puts puzzles together or plays educational games.

As tempting as it can be to get them started and then take off to get some laundry done, I try to remember that the main reason I homeshool is to spend time with my kids, so as much as possible, I sit right with them during school time.

And what does my two-year-old do during this time? Well, when you read the advice of all of those homeschool veterans older and wiser than me, they suggest having special toys just for school time or having them sit with you at the table doing play dough or stringing beads.

So I do that with Joshua and it works pretty well - for about three or four minutes (I think those people who say your preschoolers will sit still with your for an hour or more must all have little girls). Then Joshua is off to do head dives off the fireplace, invite the neighbor cats in through the back door, and rummage through the pantry until he finds expired food to snack on.

I know. You do not have expired food in your pantry. You are a better housekeeper than me.

And I'm okay with that.

5. Housework.

After we finish school, we all work together for a little while on cleaning the house.

Yes, I am the meanest mom in the world to make my kids do housework, but I think they'll survive (and maybe learn some good habits in the process) and yes, it would be easier if I did it myself, but I also think that if I keep training them it will pay off someday when they can do by themselves while I put my feet up and eat bon bons :)

We mainly focus on one job each day. For example, one day to vacuum, one day to clean rooms, one day to sort laundry, one day to fold it... We all dread laundry-folding day, so I have just decided that that is the day we get to have cookies or ice cream for a snack when we are finished.

6. Exercise and Fresh Air

This usually leaves us with a little time before lunch, and if the weather is nice, we will take a bike ride, walk to the park, or just play in the yard. Gotta make them tired for nap time.



7. Lunch and Rest Time

Ah, nap time. This is the sacred part of the day. It's not that I don't love spending time with my kids, but as the mother of a large family once said, if we don't take time every day to come apart, then we will come apart!

8. Afternoon

After rest time, we often do an art or drawing project and I read aloud from a chapter book. We are currently enjoying the Little House series.

The rest of the afternoon, they are free to play, and they often spend the time building forts, giving dental cleanings to the stuffed animals, generally running wild, or maybe hunting imaginary lions with nerf guns.



So that is the way a typical day progresses if all goes as planned.

There are always days we end up doing spelling in the car or math in the doctor's office while someone is crying.

Some days - okay, lots of days - we have to forget about schoolwork or housework (or all of it) due to doctor's appointments, speech evaluations, premenstral syndrome, a nice day that makes the park too hard to resist, a sale at Old Navy...

Yes, I know. Everytime you keep your kids home from school they are really sick.

But I'm not a perfect mom.

And I'm okay with that : )

Our Sleep Solution

So, I feel a little sheepish even posting about this, because I suspect there may already be some well-known book out there that has already discussed this idea and everybody else knows about it but me (In which case, thanks for telling me!).

I wouldn't know because I'm the mom that doesn't read those books, breaks all the sleep rules, and occasionally still has an elementary-age child climb into my bed at night. I figure (1.) there are worse things than having your child want to cuddle with you at night and (2.) they will probably outgrow it by the time they turn 15 or 16 anyway.

I will admit that I was that mother who broke the rules and nursed (or bottle-fed) her babies to sleep every night. I mean, it works, for heaven's sakes, and after a long day with a baby, who in their right mind is actually going to wake their child back up after they fall asleep nursing in order to go through some elaborate routine and listen to 30 minutes or more of crying it out??

But I digress.

When child number three arrived in our family with a wildly erratic sleep schedule that did not become regular after many months of adjusting to life with us, I realized we had a problem and could use some structure.

Maybe it could be blamed on sleeping in a noisy orphanage, but whatever the reason, Joshua seemed to live by the motto: "If I close my eyes too long I will surely miss something" and it was anyone's guess what time he would be ready to start each day. One thing was certain: I would be summoned at a very early hour and he would be very insistent that I get him out of his room RIGHT NOW or else there was going to be big trouble (like a train being smashed on Caleb's sleeping head).

I needed help.

I came across a lot of advice about putting an alarm clock in the child's room, or maybe a lamp that switches on to signal when it's time to get up.

But I have two problems with that. Number one is that it doesn't allow for the chance - be it ever so remote - that the child might actually sleep in and then you've just woken him up.

Number two is the fact that my early bird shares a room with his big brother who is decidedly not a morning person. Caleb is one of the sweetest, most easy-going kids, but if awakened too early, he becomes something resembling this:


So to make a long story short, here's what we came up with:

This cute night light was made by husband when he took me on a date to one of those pottery-painting places. It sits in the boys room on a timer, and when we are sitting on the floor at night reading stories, the light comes on, signaling that it's time to get in bed.

And then the rule is simply this: Joshua is not allowed off his bed as long as the light is on (it turns off automatically when we want him to wake up).

It has worked beautifully. I can have time to myself in the morning, it doesn't wake Caleb up, and it doesn't even wake Joshua up if he gets a wild hair and decides to sleeps in a little.

And if I want to, I can even sleep in until 7am! (cue Hallelujah Chorus)