Creating a Simple Schedule

I know we're already a few weeks into the New Year, but I wanted to share with you my New Years resolution. It was simple this year.

I want to spend more intentional time with my family & God.

I have found that I can go through an entire day without spending any good, quality, purposeful time with my family. That bothers me. I love my family to bits and I don't want my kids growing up thinking that I never took time to sit and play with them! Don't get me wrong, I interact with my children all day long. They are fed, cleaned and clothed! I just find that I rarely sit on the floor to play with them and that makes me sad.

I read On Becoming Toddler Wise by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam to give me some insight into the brain of my precious daughter, who is almost 2. I feel like I have been lax in my parenting of her and in need of some guidance on how to best parent that independent little soul. I found that the book was very much in line with my New Years Resolution to spend more purposeful time with my kids by talking a lot about the need for a daily schedule. I'm a very routine person around my house, my kids eat at the same times every day, nap at the same times every day, etc. But, when it comes down to the details of my day, it's very loose. Mostly free play. The book talked a lot about the need for lots of structure in our kids lives. They gave an example of a daily schedule of a mom of 2 and I decided to use that as my frame work and go from there. I sat down and spent a good hour developing a daily schedule that I think will work for us. Now, we haven't actually tried it yet since I just put it together yesterday and now we're into the weekend (my husband has most Fridays and Saturdays off), so it will have to wait another week or so. I really think it will be good for all of us!

Here's a sample of what my schedules look like:

I created a schedule for every "normal" day. Most Mondays are the same for me. I usually take the day to recoup from the weekend, get the house back in order and just be with my kids. Every every Thursday morning I have playgroup at our church, so I have a "normal" Thursday schedule as well as a "playgroup" Thursday schedule, so I work off them differently depending up on which Thursday it is. Normally, I grocery shop on Tuesday mornings, so that day runs a bit different for me since we are not home most of the morning.

I will definitely keep you posted as I work through our new schedules and tweek them as I find necessary.

Emily