Night Time Chart

 

Just recently on pinterest I found a checklist for night time. I decided to make one to fit our family. If the night is rushed we start at "Put on Pajamas" instead of at the beginning, but the goal is to do everything on the checklist each night so that the rooms, teeth, and children are clean each morning. When they start school full time I will probably add "Lay out clothes" and possibly "Make Lunch." This helps reduce morning time rush, and makes going to bed so much easier. It eliminates their excuse for prolonging the process. Once it is crossed off, it is done. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exercise

My search for a healthy lifestyle has lead me to exercise. I'm having difficulty with it, as I assume most parents with children do. I have a hard time wanting to spend more then a half hour doing anything because after that point (well actually about fifteen minutes) Kaile and Cope start to get antsy and "bored" so they will start talking, screaming, and singing loudly; non-stop to the point they can no longer be ignored. I know they have figured this out and that is why they do it, but it is hard to ignore. That means that I have about that long for exercise and that is it. Most work-outs take at least an hour. After checking out pinterest I found several routines that had lists of exercises to do. The ones that start with jumping jacks and have about 20 different exercises on them. The whole routine takes over an hour. I realized though that I don't have to do them all at the same time. 50 jumping jacks don't take long and if I took one of those lists and addapted it to me, then I could do the whole list throughout the day and get in more exercise then I am now. In the long run I will need to up the amount I do slightly in order to compensate for the fact that I'm not doing them all together, but for now it is a start.

Here is my list. I'll edit, add to, and rearrange as I go along.

1. Ride Bike (I go around our block twice and then up to the mail box and back before my kids wake up in the morning) 15 min.
2. Jumping jacks 50
3. Russian Twists 50
4. 10 standing push-ups (Will do these against the counter between doing dishes and hitting the next chore.)
5. 40 crunches
6. 20 lunges (Do this while cleaning. I walk from one room to the next cleaning. Now I'll just lunge.)
7. 5 minute wall sit (Can do this while folding laundry.)

I'll try it today and see how it goes! Wish me luck!

Comfort and Airplane Rides

This past week the kids and I went to see my family. We flew to my sister's house in Spokane, Washington. I had an idea what flying would be like as both Cope and I were life flighted from San Juan Regional Hospital to Albuquerque, but I'd never been through the ticket or security process.

It was a mostly fun experience. The kids liked the plane, especially the turbulance. They thought it was like "a ride at Disneyland!"  How unlike everyone else that was. Others were annoyed and some even slightly sickened by the plane movement.

The only real hiccup we had was coming back. We got to the Spokane airport and proceeded to go through the security line. Cope has a comfort toy that he likes to sleep with and occasionally carry around. It is a little Simba lion that is wrapped in a blanket and purrs. He got it while we were going to constraint therapy for two weeks and were away from Daddy. He clung to it then and hasn't let it go since. It has been so well loved that the back stitch came undone and I used thick thread to stitch it back up in hopes it wouldn't come undone again. So when I went to put it in the bin, he was a little upset that I had to take it away, but he just whined and let it go.

We went through the metal detector without an issue, and I started to put everything back in the bag and put our shoes back on. The lion came through last. I saw the person running the machine get a confused/curious/disgruntled look on her face. She reached around and took the lion out of the bin and looked it over. Finding the handstitched seam across the back she turned to the lady standing in the back and said, "can we hold a stuffed animal? Is that even in the protocol?"

The lady in the back was taking round paper looking circles and swiping them on random items that came through and then she'd put the circles in a different machine, wait for a minute, take the round paper out and throw it away and then get another paper and start again. She said, "we can hold anything, but what could possibly be wrong with a stuffed animal?"

At first that is what I wanted to know, what in the world could they possibly find wrong with my sons lion!  They turned away and started whispering though, so I couldn't hear the response. I said, "Please don't take his lion, it's his comfort toy!"

After standing there for a little while, I realized that the problem was probably that the machine showed the purring thing inside it, meaning she saw there was something inside the lion and then directly where there was something inside, there was a handstitched section. I could see how that looked really bad.

I tried to explain that to the ladies, but they just asked me to please go stand by the elevator. They would let me know what was going on once they had investigated further. We waited for a good ten minutes more at least. The lady who was in the back with the round circles finally brought me back Cope's lion. She said it came up clean, so we were free to go. I was so relieved they gave it back to us. Bed time would have been interesting had they chose not to.   

I thought how like everyday life this is. Sometimes we get the thing that gives us the most comfort taken from us. Sometimes we succeed in getting back and other times we have to find something new to give us the comfort we need. Sometimes we hit turbulance and sometimes it's a smooth ride. No matter how my life is I hope I can be like my kids and love the ride especially when turbulance hits; especially when things change and are no longer comfortable.

Time Scheduling

I thought I would share how I keep on schedule. I don't always, but I've been trying really hard. One of the things I found was that I would spend hours online. Not because I needed to, just because I would lose track of time. If I wasn't online then I would spend most of my day cleaning and not spend as much time as I needed with my kids, or I would spend all day with the kids and not get to the cleaning. I also found that Kailey was feeling like I "loved Cope more" because I would spend much devoted time to him and then not have any specific "Kailey" time. I have 11 alarm options on my phone. So what I've done is put an alarm for each event in my day. I have wake-up, exercise, therapy at home, school, outside time, lunch, nap time, and me time. I also have the specific therapy times outside of our home. Each alarm isn't to keep me on an exact schedule, I don't automatically quit what I'm doing and start on whatever the alarm says, but it is a reminder that time has passed and that I have other things to do. Therapy is for Cope and then I do an hour of "school" with Kailey. "School" has made life easier because then I can tell her it is Cope's turn and she'll have a turn with Mommy later. It makes her less frustrated and jealous and it works well in helping me stay organized. I have also found if I give them outside time before naps then they are more tired and less likely to fight taking the nap. It makes naptime go more smoothly. Giving myself some time to do whatever I want for the day helps me be more patient with the kids and makes for an overall better day for all of us. So my suggestion is set alarms. It helps both the parent and children stay on task. It keeps me from wasting away my day.

This is a picture of some of the words Kailey copied to write a Santa letter at Christmas. During "school" time we practice writing and learn letters along with whatever she chooses to do for the day. She is doing so good!