Toddlers thursdays - chores

Did you help out doing chores when you were a kid? I didn't ... not in a routine way. My DM(mother) was a p* BO ... the idea of doing something any other way of the "right way" would totally freak her out lol. So I did almost nothing except for some rare close to mothers day moments.
I would like my kids the value of a common "home" where everyone shares responsibilities to bless the house in their own way. It's beyond a doubt, that as long as my routine are still this premature ... it's hard to expect them to have rock solid ones ... especially because their routines depend greatly on mine lol. But at least they start to get the idea that ...

1. after school: we change shoes, hang jackets and bags, wash hands
2. before bed: we pick up toys for one song (thanks Flylady and Housefairy), wash and brush teeth, have a story, drink some water ... go to bed
3. in the morning: wash and brush teeth, get dressed to shoes, eat Bf, take meds

You can imagine how proud I was when yesterday my DD4 was explaining our routines to my DM who is staying over to help me out while DH is away on a business-trip :)

Toddlers thursdays - getting them dressed

This is the first year that DH is taking the biggest part on him for getting the kids launched. Before, I was either home or the few days I had to go to work, we would launch one kid each. Now they both have to go to kindergarten, and I'm working mornings so DH gets them ready for school.

He does a wonderful job, even with his morning temper lol. But one thing I can't trust him to do is chose the kids clothes. Even when I lay them out beforehand, he manages sometimes to mix up DS and DD clothes ;/

Now laying out the clothes in good Flylady tradition is part of the evening routine ... and one of my big time challenges, both for myself as for the kids. As the gentleman pointed out with the problem of getting up early: "Fire your early morning manager", well my " evening manager" is risking his job too. Do I have to sum up his excuses? Lol. The tiredness? The five more minutes in front of the computer? The OMG now it's really time to get to bed, lets forget all the rest?

Anyway, although far from the well-oiled routine machinery. I know found a system that seems to work for me. I use these organizers you see on the picture. That one is from ikea and really cheap. But I got mine as a free gift with the groceries I bought. I would prefer two small chests with cute little tagged boxes ... but for now this will have to do.

Each "shelf" is a day, and I put all the clothes in there for each day, whenever I'm in there room to put away the clean clothes. I don't know where I stole the idea.... but it works wonders for me!

Saturdays blessings - S

The S from Stress was requesting my attention on Saturdays balancing acrobat' s act. The juggling of fun and blessings doesn't come natural to me. Till suddenly I had a flylady whisper ... ok not so sudden ... and ok I might already have had lots of hints pointing in the direction of a possible solution ... but somehow some messages are hard to digest. The sinking in process is time and energy-consuming and the bricks of truths somehow get pulled back up to the surface ... waiting for a new AHA to start sinking in AGAIN! Lol!
Anyway for my stressfreesaturdayfunandhomeblessing I need the S from small. I just need to see the bigger picture through the small pleasures. I love my timer for breaking time into manageable sessions varying from 5m to 15m, sometimes in sessions of 45m or an hour. They are very concrete. No escaping the buzzer. Both rescuing us from Princessy and the inner hyperfocused cleaning/organizing/creative banshee ;)
But why love the Small Slices of time, but whenever it comes to my children, food, my relationship with dh, schoolwork, fun activities I tend to get stuck in the all-or-nothing-trap. All my dreams tend to be big, bigger, biggest lol. I don't have to explain the becoming overwhelmed-guilt-self pity -chocolates-in-front-of-telly-syndrome I guess ...
So up till now, after being energy-deprived due to being ill, I tried to overfocus the fun with the family I wouldn't allow myself anymore to give in on family life because of work Or better because of my perfectionist views om what a teacher should do, or what a principle may expect from my work. I would put my health, my family, centimes first. Weekends are family time. But somehow this focus ended up putting my health last because I started to neglect my schoolwork, plan and play for the home-blessings ... bringing in the Stress ...
No my family, my kids don't need whole day outings to the coast, theme parks etcetera every weekend. Small pleasures can make a child's day. Small gestures can put a smile on dh face. And I guess the end result won't be small at all if I manage to keep these insights in mind!
So yesterday I first had a session of poor-ole-me, because there was "lots" of home to be blessed and "only" an evening outing to my school for dinner. Luckily I remembered this kids-magazine subscription with lots of fun activities. Small fun activities. Easy activities. Up till now I had procrastinated about using them. Because I first wanted to scan the magazine for re-use. Because there were some activities which needed special materials. Because I only had a few minutes to spare. Because I didn't have t... Hit me hit me hit me lol. Actually please don't, who knows I might forget what I (hopefully) just learned :)
So I gathered the kids and asked if I would read a story (mostly I only read a bedtime story) ... they were thrilled ... Ok no lets burst the pictureP*idyllic scene ... dd was thrilled ... ds saw the story and though about all the other books we have and started to get them out of the chest lol ... anyway I read for about 5m and both kids were happy! I could go on with my home-blessings. After some time I did another activity with them: 10m! "When will we do the next one?" I was dreading the question for quite some time. But she accepted my answer, that first I had to work a bit and that I would join her in a bit for another activity.
At the end of the day, my house wasn't picture P*, the resume of the day wasn't impressive ... but I certainly was impressed by my new love for the Small :)