Our life without school
Mornings:
Watch kid TV and have leisurely breakfast
Do activity sheets (i.e. coloring pages with letters on them); read stories
Have lunch at home (home-baked bread, fresh vegetables from garden)
After lunch do an outing to Target, a park, or maybe the pet store, all of which are close by
Afternoons:
“Quiet time” (i.e. the two hours Chance is required to play quietly in his room; Me – nap or work)
Clean up after quiet time
Art project or play outside, garden or go for a walk
Dinner time, then bath
More stories and bedtime
Our life with school
Mornings:
Watch 1-2 kids’ shows, scarf down breakfast and run out the door
Drive Chance to school
Stop at Starbucks because I didn’t get enough caffeine and/or breakfast
Stop at bank
Run errands to stores that are lacking in “child entertainment value” (i.e. anything that isn’t Target, Toys R Us, or a pet store)
Stop briefly at home (because that seemed like a good idea)
Drive back to school to pick up Chance
Stop for drive-through lunch
Eat crappy fast food lunch at home; realize I need to stop by the bank again (feel guilty AND broke)
Afternoons:
Enforce shortened “quiet time”
Sit exhausted on couch (me)
Prep for next outing (because of course all the playgroup/kid oriented activities start up again now that summer is over!)
Pull Chance out of quiet time, cram snack in him
Drive to playdate/group activity/seasonal outing/grandma’s house
Drive home (in traffic)
Dinner time (hope that Keen has cooked; if not, run out to pick up food)
Skip bath (Eau d’ Exhaust is so lovely!)
Stories and bedtime
Over the summer I had maybe two to three guaranteed outings in a week. Last week I had seven! I gassed up my car last Wednesday midday… by Friday I was already down a quarter of a tank! My carbon footprint has not just expanded, I think it’s grown a corn or two.
– the weirdgirl
I hear more and more about the new parents that spend all of their time in their cars while kids are properly stimulated and enriched. At least you have a cool car.
This post? Perfectly captures every day, including weekends. Wow. Everyday I wake up and think that this is the day that’s going to be different. Organized. Structured, but not overbearing.
Sure.
Then they get home from school and I think we’re going to get homework done and dinner finished and baths. Read books. Be happy and perfect.
Um…tonight, around 7:14 p.m., I remembered I had to feed them. THEN there was homework. All I could do was toss them in bed and call it a day and start again tomorrow, which will start with me having the same “today’s going to be different” mindset…
wash, rinse, repeat…
You’d think school would make life easier. Clearly it doesn’t.
Huh, I thought it was just me. On the days when I have the car, it seems like the kids and I are in the damn thing for HOURS. And there is always a fast-food lunch in there somewhere.
Jeanne – cool shmool. If this kid does sports Keen is gonna be driving!
FADKOG – It’s amazing that any of us actually get time to blog! (Although I’m sure we’d all be insane if we didn’t fit in somewhere.) I’ve just developed a rolling To Do list and try not to get stressed about it. (A little something I call european zen.)
VegasDad – In theory the time while he’s in school SEEMS like so much freedom. Sigh.
Hannah – And don’t you love when your car gets that fast food smell? Mmmm, fresh! (Thank god most men seem to regard the scent of stale french fries as an aphrodisiac!)
Whew! I’m exhausted just reading about your day! I’m so glad that I don’t have to do that stuff anymore.
Don’t worry. Al Gore’s carbon footprint is 100 times what the average American’s is.
Ug. Stoopid gas.
We recently moved (in other words, left my husband) across town and Miss C is still in school 30 minutes away from where we live now. It’s a private school and all paid up for the year so taking her out is not an option. I spend an hour in the car in the a.m. and another hour in the afternoon. I use a 1/4 tank of gas a DAY. A. FREAKING. DAY. Talk about a carbon footprint.