The Plan

Not only is the summer wrapping up but our time before baby arrives is coming to an end as well. "Up here" summer officially ends on Labor Day with most schools starting the next day. Labor Day happens to be the last day of the State Fair and of course, my due date.

So you may have guessed that things are getting busy and summer and fall schedules are starting to mesh together. This is our last week before our due date so I'm trying to get anything done that's best done without three children, I also want to enjoy the last week of summer with the kids, but at the same time I'm anxious to get rolling with homeschooling too. I'm trying to be conscious of the fact the in a few months it will be cold and we'll be stuck inside...plenty of time for school, for now we play.

Of course are week is already packed. Monday we are scheduled to drop off a meal for friends who just had a baby and Mr. Sloth is grilling a Turkey. To make life easier for us all I'll be taking the kids to the pool in the afternoon so Mr. Sloth can grill and work at home alone...and our house will stay clean. If I spend the morning cleaning and making the side dishes we should just have to come home to a clean house and dinner ready to eat. It sounds like a great plan anyway...

Tuesday is supposed to be rainy which is perfect. The kids and friends of ours are going to the mall for no good reason. We just haven't been in a while and it's a good place to get some pre-labor walking done. Gotta be in shape! And again it will be nice to have the kids a meal out of the home and keep the dining room/kitchen somewhat clean.

Wednesday or Thursday we are heading to the State Fair. Demand is REALLY excited and even though I'm probably going to go past my due date I'm afraid of having the baby before we go to the State Fair. Demand and I would both be disappointed. (Mr. Sloth would probably take her on his own though) So my only real go is to not go into labor before arriving at the State Fair. I can start laboring there, that's just fine. Walking and eating is great for that. Oh, I can't wait!!

Friday: As to start getting into a new fall schedule I'm trying to keep Fridays open as a free day for field trips or play dates. Fridays are great for that. I do have book club that night though, so that's exciting.

My other real goal for the week, other than NOT to have the baby before State Fair is to have the carpets and couch steam cleaned. I find them rather embarrassing right now and would REALLY feel ready for baby to come if they were done. As far as the house goes, the garage and downstairs bathroom are done and I *kinda* started working on the playroom. Mommy didn't get much time to work on it this weekend though, but who didn't see that coming?? I'm proud of myself for finding a way to rearrange some furniture and use some pre-existing shelving to give us more shelving and better storage without having to buy more. Next big step is to pain the tiny wall to match the adjacent one and then hang the shelves up. Other than having the carpets cleaned that's all the room really needs.

The last week I've been working on putting together a new fall schedule and getting as much prepared in advance for home schooling that we can before baby arrives. We've already done 7 weeks of her preschool program and around 3-4 lessons each of her reading and math so we're not doing horrible. I've been playing around a lot with what times to do certain activities and I think I found a schedule that works for us. I'm looking at a three day school week of Mon/Wed/Thurs, Demand has Good Shepard on Tuesday afternoons and Fridays we leave free.

So on school days here's my tentative schedule (assuming baby is completely cooperative and in agreement of course).

6:30am: I get up and dressed and such and start breakfast. Chances are Demand will be up for hours already as we don't know what time she actually wakes up.

7-8am Children release from crib/ upstairs and breakfast is served. I've decided to do and faith formation, mostly "Who am I?" over breakfast as meals are always a great time to teach the faith. For example.....Mass. I've started doing this the last few days and it's working fabulously. Demand can do her workbook pages or crafts later in the day but stories,Q&A , etc works great while the kids are eating. Demand loves it when I read saint stories or Bible stories during meals anyways. After breakfast will be quick downstairs clean up.

8-9am Upstairs dress kids, brush teeth, do hair and make beds. We pretty much do this already so that shouldn't take too much adjusting, we'll just have another baby to work with. And finally start laundry. I have a great new system for doing laundry, but I'll share that some other day.

9-10am Schooling--Little Saints Preschool Program. It definitely doesn't take an hour I'm just assuming we'll need some wiggle room and I'll most likely have to nurse the baby, change a diaper, stop a fight, you get the idea.

10/ 10:30am- 11am. Snack time then chores, playtime, etc.

11:30am make/eat lunch, clean up, playtime

1pm -Nap time for Happy and most likely baby. Demand and I will either work on MathUSee, Little Stories for Little Folks, other supplemental things like Bob Books, general reading, board games, computer games, preschool workbooks, or just plain old resting time.

3pm- Happy usually wakes up at 3pm-3:04pm sharp. Then it's snack time and playtime giving me time to get more housework done and start dinner. I'd also like to have the kids do more cooking during this time if possible. Both kids love to cook (What kid doesn't?) Cooking is definitely on our list of things to incorporate into home schooling.

Basically we're doing the preschool program while Happy is awake because he follows along with most of it as far as the songs, books, games go, and of course he'll be learning too. I decided that trying to do Math and Reading while Happy is awake just doesn't work for our family right now and since Demand is doing Kindergarten Math and Reading she needs more concentration. Next year he'll have a playmate and that should help entertain him if need be.

So that's our plan and it's just that a plan for now. Not knowing the baby and his/her plans yet anything could change so we're ready to be flexible, but we need to start with some plan of action.

So that's the plan for the next week, and then some. Now if we only knew when baby was joining our family...