Starting over and accepting where you are.

I have a routine for each day of the week, but sometimes I say "Oh, screw this" and blow it all off for a few hours.

I am not one of those magazine people who says "Plans?  Schedule?  What-EV" and instead of doing math or hauling everyone to music lessons or folding all the laundry, spontaneously curls up on the couch with a lapful of children and reads stories all morning, or goes to the park and plays tag, or bakes charmingly unkempt cookies, smiling knowingly as she checks herself in the mirror and removes a dab of frosting from her cheek.

I'm more apt to throw out the schedule so I can work on some intense project I've been putting off, not so much because the project needs to be done, or needs to be done by me, but because I miss concentrating intently on something that requires concentration.

It's all about me.  It's about the pleasure I get from that kind of work.  

I get to say to the children, "Go away.  I'm working."

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But after it's over I usually have a sort of bad taste in my mouth, because I don't have the same things to show for my morning that I would have had if I had stuck to the plan.  

We have lunch.  I make the kids help me clean up.  I put on a pot of coffee.  I breathe a sigh of relief.  Sanity has been restored to my environment:

... here too, at the desk...

... ahh.

 

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I would be a better parent and teacher if I didn't need quiet, tidiness, and silence for some scrap of time in the middle of the day.   Undoubtedly. 

But I would be a worse parent and teacher if I didn't recognize that need and make it happen.

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We have lunch around 12:30, finish cleaning up around 1:15, and I try to start up again around 2.  A lot of homeschoolers manage to be done by two, but not us.  It isn't that I'm not a morning person.  I am a morning person.  

That's exactly why I hate to spend my morning homeschooling the kids.

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Anyway -- I feel a lot better at two o'clock, starting from the freshly-tidied first floor.  If I get the chance to tidy before bed -- so that I come downstairs to a similar scene, first thing in the morning -- so much the better.  When all that distracting clutter is cleared away, I can blog, or write letters, or plan -- I feel like I can get so much done before the coffee pot is empty.

I try, but it doesn't always happen.  Instead of sweeping up, I sit and have a beer with my husband after the kids go to bed.  Or I read a bedtime story.  Or I try to get the three-year-old to go to sleep first, and I fall asleep next to him.

None of these things are bad, of course.  One choice is not better or worse than the other.   They all have their merits.  

So hard, sometimes, to be serene about choices.   I want all the benefits of all the possible things I could do with my time.  I hate letting go of any of them.  I always long for the things that were incompatible with the choice I made.

I can see why meaningless, circular affirmations like "It is what it is" are popular.  What they really mean is a sort of "Oh, well" -- a refusal to be bothered by the way things turned out.  It all comes down to acceptance --

-- a strange word that I've blogged about before --

-- a word that has many different meanings, depending on its object, all of which come down to "receiving willingly or agreeably."

My time is a gift; I've chosen to use it a certain way; I've received a certain set of circumstances as a direct result of my choices -- so I've received circumstances I've chosen; I acknowledge a truth, that I can't have the might-have-beens.

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Here's the deal.  I had a jumbly sort of morning because we left the kitchen in disarray before going to bed last night.  

(Don't tell me that I don't have to let kitchen disarray jumble my morning.  It's what happens.)

We left the kitchen in disarray because we stayed up late, chatting over doppelbock, after the kids had gone to bed.  Even the little one had fallen asleep, nursing, in my lap.

We stayed up late because we started late, and we started late because I spent almost two hours that evening going to the gym.  I went because I wanted to say that I made it to the gym three times this week, instead of the two times that's been far more common lately.   And because skiing last week hurt my legs more than it did when I was exercising more.  And because Mark offered to deal with dishes and bedtime snack so I could go.  I went for that long because I wanted to feel the ache that comes from swimming a mile in forty-five minutes.  

I chose all those good things instead of a distraction-free morning, and I need to be thankful for them -- accept them graciously -- rather than complain.

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And now that I've finished my afternoon coffee -- and taken time to think clear thoughts -- it's time for me to get up and call the kids for math.  I think I'm ready now.  Are you?

Comments

[Patty]

I get you. And I bet you would so get me. :-)

[Amy F]

I too, take a long midday break and we all need it. At the mid-year mark a few weeks ago, I thought about what was working with our days and what wasn't and made some changes, but kept the midday break. My kids are willing and able to come back after the break, but not for math or writing. It works out for us to have history and religion/art/science after lunch, but not much else. Our days had been starting later and later with more pauses between subjects until we were lucky to get math and one other thing done before lunch and then we were still working when Dan came home and everybody was fried. My solution was to start putting times up on our corkboard (that already listed the day's subjects). I was worried that we'd get behind due to me, not them, and it would be useless, but seeing the times helps all of us. If we end up taking a long time for breakfast and starting half an hour late, I adjust the times so it won't be hopeless from the start, but I try not to. I'm more motivated to give the kid who's not working with me his reading book for the day instead of letting him wander off. I began assigning anything a putzing child didn't finish as homework instead of letting him suck up the whole morning with one math page and 2 copywork sentences. I find that I'm spending less effort cajoling kids to keep going and saying alright, it's done, it's 10:45, on to spelling, you'll do it with Dad later.

I was afraid of scheduling times, but there's only so much loosey-gooseyness we can handle, apparently.

[Rebekka]

I have found that having a routine, or even just a loose "things that need to happen in this time period" actually makes it easier to deal with unforeseen (or foreseen but unplanned) events, because you know where you need to take up again. I realized this at work, where each shift has a sort of skeleton of tasks that need to or should be done, as opposed to at home, which was 100% chaos 100% of the time. But even if something massively disruptive (say, cardiac arrest) happened (at work! So far no cardiac arrests at home, thank God.) that meant everyone had to stop what they were doing, it was okay, because there was a good idea of what remained to be done once we had a handle on the acute situation. A semi-routine also makes it easier to prioritize tasks in my experience. Figuring this out has made a huge difference in my stress levels! I guess you need to have a routine so you can blow it off.

I still wish I had a house, and a housekeeper, and a car. So total serene acceptance is a way off.

[Bearing]

AmyF, I think I really need to follow your lead re: posting times. I have a schedule for each day written down, but it's not "published" -- the kids can't see it! Which means that I am not accountable to them for wasting their time. It also makes it hard for my oldest child to plan when he is going to get to use the computer for his schoolwork without me having to kick him off, and when he is going to meet with me to get feedback on his independent work,

[JMB]

I have a strong need to "make order" in my house and I've gotten it down to a science (45 min tops to clean kitchen, start a load of laundry, collect dirty laundry, make/tidy up beds/ wipe down bathrooms). What helps me is to have somewhere to go so I don't waste time on computer. Having too much time on my hands is not good for me. So for me, having more structure during the day is better for my productivity. Obviously, I don't homeschool and its easier to impose structure on oneself than enforcing structure on others. I do think it's a good thing to take a break and chill in the middle of the day. In my children's elementary school, math and language arts are taught in the morning and science, social studies, phys ed, specials are after lunch.