Some days, I feel like my life is one giant Pinterest failure.
Like someone could follow me around creating "Nailed it" memes about my Pinterest failures.
Today, I got to experience another round of me vs. Pinterest. You can guess who won. The same one who always freaking wins.
Sigh.
So I have been reading all about how important it is to keep kids on a schedule for the summer, keep them reading and working on math and grammar, etc. And I've been seeing all these cute and creative schedules and thought "How hard can that be? I could totally do that!"
Mistake #1.
After lots of Pinterest searching last night, I came up with THIS schedule.
I was pumped and ready to get these kids started off on the right foot for summer.
When I got home at 7:15am from the gym, both kids were awake and were happily enjoying "Free Play" (aka messing the house up). Meaning I walked into a house that already looked like a tornado had swept through. Some parents of young kids are totally cool with their house looking like a frat house.
Let's just say we're NOT those parents.
(Obviously. Those parents don't have THIS schedule. Duh.)
Free time before work = Mistake #2. Seriously, WHAT was I thinking???
They then spent the next hour and half screaming, fighting and inflicting injury with and onto one another instead of cleaning up. Very quickly, they were both in time out (multiple times) and I was headed there myself, since I may or may not have been taking my frustrations with them out on Dusk. Oops. Sorry, hun.
Then, we went to Bodie's ENT appointment, which Bodie protested mightily over. Apparently, he had an issue with "Free play; go outside time!' being a visit to the doctor's office. Picky, picky.
Then we came home and the kids ate lunch while working their way through their schoolwork. Sierra breezed through her worksheets like a champ. Bodie, on the other hand, quickly got a handle on words like "cat," "sat," and "hat."…and then lost his mind when I tried to get him to figure out "at." (A word he already knows.) As in, lying on the floor crying in fetal position because "I CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT, MOMMY!!!" So, he got halfway through his first sheet before I decided enough was enough, and it was time to jump straight to quiet reading time.
Which was, quite honestly, complete and utter bliss. Sweet silence. No fighting. No hurting each other. No screaming about not understanding easy words. Just happy reading. YES.
And then we moved onto craft time. My bright idea was to make library bags to put our library books in (the kids are both participating in the local summer reading program). Except that they wanted to use the rotary cutter (um…NOOOOO Just NO) and use the iron (Sierra ok, but Bodie, NO). So…
Bodie's "craft time" consisted in him watching me make his library bag.
At least he got to pick out the fabrics (all turtle themed - reversible with teenage mutant ninja turtles one on side).
And he really liked it!
And Sierra's "craft time" consisted of me stopping every 2 minutes to help her re-thread her sewing machine (ok, maybe not that often, but it sure felt like it). Her bag isn't done yet (I made Bodie's and had her make hers), but she's almost there. Hopefully in the next day or so she'll be done.
By then it was off to ballet for Sierra and back home for dinner. Which means we didn't get the "scheduled" clean up time in…so the house looked approximately like this when daddy got home from work.
Oops.
So much for great summer schedules.
Ah well, there's always tomorrow, right?
Does Pinterest give extra credit for effort?
If so, we're golden.
If not, the schedule for tomorrow may just read:
"Bennett Summer Schedule
8am-7:30pm Silent reading (with some meals in-between)."
Ha ha! Sometimes Pinterest needs a reality check. Just because someone posted a photo and a two sentence blurb does not mean it will work. Take the good pieces of the day and revise it as needed for your family. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteeeeesh.... Talk about ruining a perfect stress free summer! A little bedtime reading and letting them take turns choosing one favorite activity each day. Parents make too much work for themselves.
ReplyDeleteChildren playing and using their imagination is the top priorty.
GFive them a pound of clay and call it a day! ahahaha