Summer Routines

Summer is here and speeding right along.

We're all fairly well adjusted to being together, all 6 of us, for every waking moment of every day.

We're enjoying the quieter mornings without the school rush.

Ittsy girl loves having the big siblings here to tote her around and push her on the swing.

It rewarding to see my older kids taking on more responsibilities around the house.

Our days and our routines are really going more smoothly than I expected. {thank you Jesus!}

Speaking of routines....

Am I the only one who begins each season with high hopes and cool charts and boatloads of fun ideas only to slowly lose steam with each passing day?

We're slacking on the chore chart a bit these days.

And the exercise routine has ramped itself down a little.

Actually, I'm not upset about where we are with our routines yet.

I think we've settled into a healthy and realistic version of my idealized routines. I am actually writing this post to prevent me (and the kids) from slumping into total laziness in the next 2 months. This really is a pep talk to myself.

Here's a peak into some of our daily routines:

Angeline (9), Nicholas (8) and Joshua (6) are taking turns with preparing and serving lunch.  This actually requires some fairly serious oversight from me most days. They are enjoying the process of choosing and preparing the menu. Our menus are very simple. Some of our mainstays are hot dogs, mini pizzas, mac and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples, fresh veggies and pretzels. The kids love working with refrigerator biscuits and we've found many creative ways to use them.

Angeline (9) folds the laundry

Angeline, Nicholas and Josh each take turns babysitting Cassie for 20 min. at a time. They also take turns entertaining Christopher (3).

Angeline, Nicholas, Joshua are on a rotating schedule for kitchen duty. This basically includes setting the dinner table and helping with clean up afterwards.

Every afternoon I enforce a 1 hour quiet time. Acceptable quiet time activities include reading, drawing, listening to audio books and of course, sleeping.

Besides our quiet time, the rest of the afternoon is often spent playing with the neighbor kids  or general free time. Activities include anything from 10 kids splashing in a small wading pool to high intensity backyard baseball games. Life is never dull around here.


Here are some of our weekly routines:

Nicholas is in charge of lawn care. He does 95% of the mowing.

On Thursday we clean the upstairs. The children are responsible for cleaning their own bedrooms.

Angeline and Nicholas wash up the kitchen and dining room floors.

Nicholas empties the trash twice a week.

They all take turns vacuuming the carpet.

The boys clean up the garage and basement.

Angeline is responsible for cleaning out the van.
 
The boys weed and water the garden. (It is very small, but I still help them with it....mostly because I enjoy gardening)

We all exercise for a half hour (2x/ week) We have several local bike trails that we frequent often. Sometimes we simply traipse down to the vacant parking lot right near our house where we can bike, walk, board, blade etc.

We all look forward to library time once a week. Library time is much more enjoyable for me as mom since we decided to opt out of our local library's summer reading program this year. It's a great program, but it got to be a bit over the edge stressful for me to walk 4 different kids through the loops and stamps and prizes. I replaced the library's program with my own program this year. It's been a good and appropriate change for our family.


This all sounds nice and tidy as I read over our summer routines.

And I chuckle to myself.

Truth is...

The boys run away and hide when it comes time to clean the basement. Angeline tries to hurry through the laundry and sometimes I can't tell if it has been folded or not. My boys fight with the neighbor boys. I can't seem to get Cassie's nap time coordinated with the older kid's quiet time for the life in me. Sometimes dirty cereal bowls from breakfast are still on the table at lunch time. Sometimes the librarian has to help the 3 yr. old check out his books (Our librarians are the best!!) because I'm chasing after that fast moving 10 month old. Sometimes we get to the store and realize that the 8 (!!!!) year old forgot to wear shoes.  Sometimes there is NO peace and NO quiet and I feel like I'm going to go crazy.

Truth is, I love to break out of our routines and have fun on a fairly regular basis. Maybe I should add  unexpected fun into our list of daily routines.

These routines, practiced with flexibility, are what keep us sane in this household.