I was hoping that school would provide a good structure for our day after summer travel.
Read on to see how our first month went!
Week one:
I was right. I fell in love with our new daily routine. I got up early enough to cook breakfast to eat with Andrei before he left for work. Then schoolwork with David, which we managed to finish in an hour or 90 minutes. After that, outside time.
Home from the walk in plenty of time to eat lunch, then finish up any remaining read-alouds. And...the day was still young! I did dinner prep and sometimes we went outside for another walk before dinner. The kids were getting little to no screentime because we were reading books for school all day, which inspired imaginative play.
We had friends over.
We would wash dishes gradually throughout the day and pretty much stay on top of it (we don't have a dishwasher).
In the evening I would get to bed early, exhausted and still a little bit jet-lagged.
Then we hit some roadblocks and it got harder:
-everyone slept in on the first weekend, pushing bedtime later and making it harder to get up the next morning and each day after that
-we got behind on the dishes and I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning anymore because of the mess I had to face in the kitchen
-the other housework I had ignored in lieu of schooling piled up
-I bumped David up in a few subjects and that lengthened the school day
-the weather got cold, then the heat came on in mid-September and I stopped sleeping at night because it was so hot
-getting ready to go outside turned into tantrum central because of the change in weather
-we got an hour behind on starting our day, making the rest of the day rushed
-we all got colds
By the end of the month, we were all fighting a virus. Due to that, we stayed inside for more than a week and that made the day more relaxed again, not needing to get ready to go anywhere. But outside time is a priority, so it's not a long-term solution.
Now I'm sick (when I started writing this 2 weeks ago), low-energy, don't want to get up in the morning, and don't want to go outside into the gloom. When the sun comes out, I have a panic attack that we won't get outside in time before it goes behind a cloud.
I stay up for hours at night wanting to unwind. Then I get a second wind and can't fall asleep. Then I have no energy in the morning.
It's definitely rough dealing with low-energy, makes every aspect of life challenging.
School is going well overall; I don't rush to finish it by a certain time. We do what we can in the morning, try to get outside, and then resume after lunch.
That's the routine part of the school day. I might write about academics at some point. In general we just do a little tweaking and make it work!
Oh, my! What to say. I almost wish I could just put in a OH NO! emoji.
ReplyDeleteI certainly empathize. I can't fathom why I have to have the same amount of sleep as Monnie, but I do - at least 9 hours. And, then we HAVE to get up at 6 to be ready for school; it doesn't matter when I go to bed - at 6 I am in my deepest and best sleep and getting up is torture. I am not even awake enough to offer it up, or make it some holy discipline. I'm just plain miserable....every morning. And then at night, I don't feel like going to bed at all.... Well I could go on and on; let's just say - schedules are HARD.
That's so hard! I was talking with a friend here who goes to bed at 2. Well, we do also, but Andrei doesn't have to leave before 10 usually. And this friend gets up before 6. But there's just so much to do in the evening, whether it's actual chores or just having time to unwind. We just had our second case of the sniffles, so this post is still current, I suppose.
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