Just a little school update

Hey, remember me. I used to drop by here occasionally. I know, its only been about four or five days but even so, it feels like a lot longer.

I could tell you that I've been busy, completely up to my eyes in other things but then I'd be lying.

Alright, first things first, the new school. Chloe absolutely loves it. She barrels off down the street in the morning (it rocks living 2 mins from the gate btw) as fast as her wee legs will carry her with her newly acquired ponytail bouncing along behind her and her school bag flapping in the wind.

There I go talking about the weather again, but it has been windy.

In fact I'm lucky to even get a kiss and hug before she rushes in through the door in the morning. Then when I collect her she talks of nothing else for hours on end, about the games she played and the songs she sang. It really does sound like she's having a ball.

I don't know if this works for everyone, but I tend to watch Chloe's eating habits during any big change such as this because I think its the best indicator of how she's taking to it all.

She started school on Thursday last week and on the Thursday and Friday and then again on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week that little girl of mine came home and ate like a champion. I mean I haven't seen her grub like that in a long time. She would arrive home and be immediately ready for a full lunch, then she snacked what felt like constantly until about 4.30pm and then she was ready for a full cooked dinner again at 5.30pm. Plus she would have had another snack (or two) before her bedtime at 8.00pm. Clearly the new routine was taking it out of her to begin with, she was finding it challenging and needed the extra food to help her get used to amount of new things expected from her each day.

However, yesterday she arrived home and ate what I would consider her usual amount for lunch, she had a snack again at around 3pm and then just plenty to drink until dinner time without once asking for or helping herself to anything else.

This is more like her usual routine before she started school so I think she's already getting used to her new routine and finding a good balance for herself which isn't bad really considering it was only her sixth day in school. She's in school now and I'm sure that being off for the weekend will throw her a bit and we'll start pretty much from scratch again on Monday but I think she'll get the hang of it all quite quickly. She normally does adapt pretty well to new things so I'm not really worried.

Now feel free to let me know if I'm a bit of a oddball or whether this has happened to anyone else once their kids are off to school and they have a bit of free time to themselves. Here's the thing, while Chloe has replaced one routine with another, I've completely lost one.

Don't get me wrong, there are a hundred things I could be doing to make good use of the time in the morning but does anyone else find themselves kind of just sitting around waiting for their kids to come home. Maybe floating back and forward between a couple of different things but not actually accomplishing much, if anything at all.

Maybe its just the first few days while I get used to exactly how much time I have to play with during the day, but as it stands at this moment in time I am the Official Thumb Twiddler of the Woods Residence.

Now if you'll excuse me there's a space on the wall I must stare at until the bell rings (it really does rock living 2 mins from the gate).

All quiet on the home front

The rain is back. No surprise there really, but it does mean we're having a few quiet days just pottering around the house.

It's nice, we haven't had a few uninterrupted days to just relax in a while and it starts to feel a bit frantic when there is so much to do.

We've started a new thing around here too. Toots has been a little clingy lately. Well perhaps clingy isn't the right word but she has insisted on doing absolutely everything mummy does for a couple of weeks now.

So this week we've been trying to separate ourselves a bit. She has to play in her bedroom for about 30-45 minutes after breakfast and again for about an hour or so in the afternoon after lunch.

She seems to be taking to it so far, although there is still a novelty to the whole thing. I'm functioning a bit better because of it as well. I know that I have a set out of time to get things done, which she can't help with or which I would prefer she didn't help with and it motivates me to get the tasks done and out of the way. I use the time to make phone calls, write letters, pay bills that kind of thing.

I think in a week or so I may try to bring a little more routine to our day. I'll wait to see what happens once the novelty wears off, it'll give me a better idea of how happy she is to play by herself, but ideally I would like our day to run something like this;

Breakfast (both of us)
Play Time (Toots)
School type work (15 to 20 minutes of maths or working on her handwriting)
Help Mummy (she can help me bake, fold laundry, prepare lunch)
Lunch
Play Time (toots)
School type work (if she chose maths in the morning, then it would be handwriting in the afternoon)
TV (should be around 2.30-3.00pm and she sometimes "hits a wall" around this time)
Outside play
Help Mummy (a last quick tidy for dad coming home and preparing the dinner)

I'll be able to get bits and pieces done while she plays in her room and really the schedule isn't as strict as it appears. I haven't restricted Toots or myself to times because then it would be destined to fail.

The schedule only accounts for about 4 to 5 hours of the day, but you can't really plan every second of a child's day anyway.

I'm hoping it works. Ideally I would like her to be used to a schedule where certain things are required of her and roughly the same time each day so that the schedule of school comes as less of a shock to her system.

What do you think? Have you had any success in setting a schedule for your kids?

I'd be interested to know if you found a schedule that worked for you.