Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A New Routine

Something is in the air people....I have already folded a load of laundry, washed and dried another and started a third.  I have cubed potatoes, sliced carrots and diced onions (tear) and dinner is in the corckpot.  I have feed my little man twice, fed Zoe breakfast....and now have both of them napping....AT THE SAME TIME!  And fixed Zach lunch during his quick lunch break home.

All without coffee....I totally forgot!

What has gotten into me!?!  I am usually about to get off the couch from morning cartoons and think about getting something done at this point in the day!  Part of it, I think, is because I might have gone to bed last night at 8:30...it was great.  And another part of me thinks it is because this is the way I want my home to be...the way our days go!

I am super-duper excited about Zoe attending PreSchool this fall at Prince of Peace!  Zach and I looked at 2 different schools and both fell in love with PoP...you just know right!  Well, I go to fill out the application and they have a section on learning about your child.  Good...I love this...I get to tell them all about what we do and how great Zoe is....and then they ask how much TV does your child watch?

And I immediately want to lie!  How bad is that!?!  But really I am just lying to myself in thinking that how my home is run right now is healthy.  It is not!  I write down 1 1/2 hours and then a movie later....and I feel guilty.

Truthfully, we watch about 3....cringe.  Our morning consists of breakfast and TV....and some more TV.  No, Zoe doesn't sit and watch TV all 3 hours, but it is on.  She is usually running around, playing with Evan, or sitting on the couch for those 3 hours before her nap.

And I think....This has got to stop!

Here is my plan!

I want our mornings to be more scheduled, maybe just more organized.  I want there to be more structure and more education in our day...for both of us!  I have things I need to get done too in the day in order for our home to run smoothly.

I want our day to start at the kitchen table (not the coffee table).  I want to either make breakfast together or eat cereal or waffle at the kitchen table.  This will help with messes and start a good habit of only having food in the dining room.

Afterwards, I want to have some sort of activity for Zoe to do, whether it be coloring, matching, finger paints, playdough, whatever while listening to music....something hands on and creative!  And I would like this to be something she can entertain herself with so I can get dinner prepared or laundry folded or dishes in the dishwasher.  I am hoping this will last us until oooo 8:30.

I really, really want to start working with Zoe on her education.  By, September when she starts school, I would like her to know the alphabet, be able to count 1-10 and know most of her colors, if not all.  And this is not going to happen watching 3 hours of TV, people!

Between 8:30-9:30, I am going to get together some great educational resources so we can work on different skills.  I want this to be fun for her and different everyday...so I am really going to need to get creative.  Each week, I want to try and work on certain things, like the letter A, number 5 and color blue for example.  And I want it to be FUN!!!!

Another goal is to get Zoe more interaction with other children.  Whether we go to story time, kindermusik or a playdate, I want her to be with kids her age!  I have signed Zoe up for Kindermusik, which I am really excited about, and there are so many different libraries in our area that offer story times or puppet shows every morning around 10:00.  So on days we are on the GO...we will leave around 9:30 to get to our specific activity.

On days we stay home, around 9:30 we will do one more activity or play outside.  At 10:00, Zoe's favorite show right now, Little Einsteins, comes on and we can watch that if she wants to until 11:00...then we will have a small snack, reading time and nap by 11:15.

Phewwww....do you think it will work?

I know everyday will bring about something new....but I would love to stick with this basic routine for our mornings.  Another reason for this new schedule is because I want the transition of going to school to be an easy one for Zoe.  Going from sitting on the couch for 3 hours to being in a classroom with other kids and a teacher...is quite a change! So I want to start making positive improvements now!

Plus....not sitting on the couch for 3 hours will help me get more done around our home too!  It is a win-win!

I am going to use the rest of this week to get organized and start planning out some fun activities...any suggestions?

4 comments:

Mary said...

that's so funny i was just blogging about this...we're the same way, i've cut back to one tv show with breakfast..then one b4 bed now..we used to do 2 or 3 some mornings, not anymore..and i'm also starting to plan our mornings too to stay super duper busy til nap...we're out on the go every single day after nap doing something active, but some mornings we're home and i'm starting to actually plan out educational stuff for the mornings...also like you were saying i think a routine to get used to before preschool is great...this whole preschool in the fall thing has got me like whoaa where did our babies go!?

Phillips Family said...

I would recommend PBSkids.org for some educational ideas for the home. Also, I know you are trying to cut out the tv but you might want to introduce some PBS shows for when its TV time. "Super Why" for example is a great show for learning letters, its an interactive show and Carson is already shouting out the correct letters, etc...when they ask. Pre-school will be such a great thing for her, kids learn so much just by be around others, she will love it! I love hearing about Carson's day at school now, it is so sweet hearing him talk about his "friends" :)

Hollyhand House said...

I feel the same way! Some days we do great!! Before Ava Kate, we watched less TV but thats what I use most of the time to entertain her so I can tend to AK. But the unfortunate thing is, now we are both used to it! AR brings the remote to me all the time and tells me what she wants to watch. I have pinned several sites with good learning ideas for toddlers. I had started doing several of these before AK but of course put it on the backburner. We can come up with some fun ideas together maybe?! You are not alone my friend!! :)

kimberly t. bowling said...

Do you still get family fun magazine? They have the best ideas for all sorts of crafts that you can incorporate learning of anything....like making your morning or afternoon snacks, with say fruits or veggies saying the colors, counting the pieces, etc. You are a great mom, girly, and Zoe adn evan are blessed to have you encouraging them daily!