Five on Friday--September 6
Hi friends! Happy September! I know it’s been several weeks since I’ve last posted, I was surprised at how hard it was for us to get ourselves back into a good routine once school started and I’ve felt a bit off these past few weeks in terms of how I’ve been spending my time. Needless to say, writing flew out the window in the midst of it all and here I sit, watching Hurricane Dorian approach this afternoon, and figured why not write up a post at least until my power goes out! Since school has been in session for a couple weeks, today's post is all about 5 things saving my life as we’ve tried to get back into a routine. Next week will be all about food as we wrap up summer and head into fall (I’ll share our fall dinner rotation, all about the freezer cooking that has literally been saving our lives as we’ve gone back to school, recipes and more!) and the following week will be all about books as I share my favorites of the summer and what I’m looking forward to this fall. Hopefully you’ll jump in and join us this month as we explore some of these favorite topics of mine and who knows, maybe some random ideas will pop into my mind and there will be some extra posts not related to any of these things!
ONE
One of the challenges we face (that I’m sure everyone does, whether you have kids or not!) is how to get everyone out the door on time but still with enough food in their bellies to make it until their respective lunch times. If my kids had their own way, they’d eat eggo waffles or a bowl of cereal each day, but we’ve seen on weekends how this lack of protein causes their bodies to absolutely crash two hours later. I heard about the Hamilton Beach Breakfast Sandwich maker on a podcast one day and was intrigued. My kids actually really like breakfast sandwiches when I buy the frozen Jimmy Dean ones, but they are expensive and horrible in terms of fat content (something we’re having to watch super carefully because of my husband’s pancreas right now). This little contraption was only $20 at Target (the cost of like 2 boxes of sandwiches!) and allows us to completely control what we put on our sandwiches. It takes 5 minutes for one to cook and you can completely customize them for whoever is eating. Charles & I like different mustards on our english muffins, Aidan likes his with no eggs, Asher likes a slice of deli ham, cheese & egg. You can use frozen pancakes for the bread part and a sausage patty in between, or you can use bagels or biscuits, bacon, turkey sausage—you name it. We aren’t using it every day, but to find something that makes a relatively healthy and protein packed breakfast the whole family can get on board with has been a game changer for our mornings.
TWO
Moving back into a season of more routine and structure than summer always comes with some adjustment, and transitioning from one grade to the next does too. What does this particular teacher expect? What will be sent home to do and what are the expectations or requirements for homework? How will my kiddo handle a new grade/class/teacher? It takes a couple weeks to settle in and figure out what is up in this new grade. We’ve been incredibly lucky in that the past two years we really haven’t had any homework that’s taken more than 10 minutes a day. Which I believe is how it should be in early elementary school. Second grade arrived and while we don’t have an insane amount of work, we have more than we’ve experienced in the past. Trying to manage the afternoon hours has taken quite a bit of trial and error for us—you can ask my small group, I showed up that first week of school feeling like the WORST parent for how I had not handled things well! My kids go to bed early, they are both naturally early risers and are both awake every day by 6 am. Which means I get them ready for bed starting at 6:30 in the evening. They are both sound asleep by 7:30 at the latest each night, especially on school nights. So protecting our afternoons from becoming overly scheduled, figuring out a way to help with the 30 minutes or so of homework we’ve been having, and still get dinner on the table, letting them play to burn energy, and fitting in any after school activities has been a game of making mistakes and trying again. Figuring out how much focus my kiddos has in him and dividing up the weekly homework packet into manageable chunks each day has also been part of this experiment. Here are some of the things I’ve figured out that are making afternoons easier for us, perhaps they’ll be helpful to you.
I’ve had to start prepping dinner earlier in the day, before I pick up my kids from school. This sounds bizarre to some of you, but it’s been the only thing that’s really worked. He’s not in a stage of life yet where I can tell him to go do his homework without me, so trying to multitask and cook dinner while he works was a disaster. But because we have to eat on the earlier side of the evening due to bedtimes I have to have dinner ready to just throw in the oven. So I prep dinner at 1 before going to get him at 2. Most of the meals we’re eating these days are freezer meals (more on that next week), so it’s not a lot of prep, but any salads or side dishes or sauces that need to be made need to be made earlier in the day so when my boys are home I can give them my full attention.
I’ve had to say no to certain after school activities. My kiddo wants to DO IT ALL because he’s an extrovert and loves learning things and trying activities. But we are also in a season of some speech therapy that needs to be done after school twice a week. And we also have homework that we can’t do all in one day a week this year. So while we’re in speech therapy, we’re only doing one activity and it’s for one hour a week on a Friday night. I’ve had to say no to protect their downtime, their homework time, and our evenings from getting too late. And that’s okay. I’ve explained our choices to Aidan and he understands that when he’s done with his therapy sessions we can add in one more activity during the week, but until then we need some afternoons where we just come home and chill, get the homework done and maybe see a friend. We live in a culture that somehow makes us feel guilty if our kids aren’t in multiple things after school, but the toll that takes on a family—time-wise and financially—is a lot. It’s okay to say no, it’s okay to say “not in this season,” and it’s okay to just let our kids have empty afternoons to come home and play legos with their brother.
To help create a “homework conducive” environment, we’ve figured out a few things that are working well. I make sure Asher has “homework” to do at the same time so he’s not a huge distraction with his playing (thankfully his teacher sends home preschool enrichment packets each week so I just have him do a page or two of those which he loves). We turn on classical music, we are all at the table together to stay focused, and I’ve discovered mini-chocolate chips are fantastic motivators for Aidan as he’s working on his handwriting and writing spelling word sentences. A tiny chocolate chip for each sentence written goes a long way towards keeping him motivated to do the next one!
And lastly, I’ve started realizing how easily distracted I am too! It’s not just my kids! So between 3 and 6 I’m trying to keep my phone in do not disturb mode, away from me, so I’m not distracted by messages coming in and I can focus on my family. I’ve discovered that helps everyone when mommy is present and not annoyed at being interrupted when reading email!
THREE
Ahh lunchbox packing. Here’s a secret, it’s a chore I used to hate, I would celebrate on the rare day he said he wanted to buy lunch, but for some reason I’ve had a shift in my attitude about this particular task. I have learned the hard way to pack the night before—when I don’t, the morning is so much harder on everyone. Even though my preschooler doesn’t eat lunch at school most days I actually still pack his lunchbox every day as well when I’m packing Aidan’s—the lunch stuff is already out, the kitchen counter is already becoming a mess, and that way his meal is ready to go when we get home from preschool and he’s starving. I like knowing what they’re being given, how much they’re eating (based on what comes home) and that they get a good variety in their lunches, so we don’t buy lunch that often. When we do Aidan will eat maybe 3 mini corndogs that he’s given and not eat the sides because they aren’t ones he loves. So of course he’s famished when he gets in the car at 3 and the afternoon gets off to a hangry start together. One of the things we’ve started doing this year is a lunch rotation. I asked him for 5-7 lunch main dishes he really enjoys and we just rotate through them—he gets a couple of them each week, and that way everything I pack I know he’ll eat and get a full belly for the afternoon. Asher pretty much gets whatever Aidan gets so it’s a lot easier. And then we fill the rest of the bento boxes they have with a fruit, a crunchy/salty snack, a muffin, a vegetable with dip etc. Our main dishes that we rotate through are: meat and cheese sandwiches (on bread or on mini croissants), chicken nuggets (I cook them in the morning and they are room temp by lunch but that doesn’t bother them), ham and cheese roll ups in tortillas with hummus or cream cheese, macaroni & cheese with cut up hot dogs (and ketchup for dipping of course!), hot dogs in a bun, homemade lunchables with meat, cheese and crackers, and quesadillas. Rotating through these gives him variety and takes the guess work out of lunch packing for me—we already know he’ll eat any of these options. A win all the way around! How does your family handle lunch packing? Do you repeat the same options or do you aim for variety? (And yes this is a picture of our actual lunch box, we use the Planet Box stainless steel lunch boxes and LOVE them. They are an investment up front but I know families that have literally used the same one all through elementary school with nothing breaking so we took the plunge. This is actually Aidan’s lunch for this morning, the day you’re reading this—a ham and cheese sandwich, grapes, cherry tomatoes, ranch dressing for dipping both the sandwich and tomatoes because my kid loves his dips, cheese its and a whole-wheat pumpkin banana chocolate chip muffin that my kids are in love with!).
FOUR
For a long time now I’ve wanted to put together some kind of chore chart for the boys and connect it to an allowance system. They’re starting to get interested in money, in wanting to buy things and asking questions about how much things cost and wanting to have money of their own. Dave Ramsey always says we have to help our kids learn about money when they’re young so they experience the pain of blowing their savings on a stupid decision while still under our roof, because if we don’t they’ll blow a lot larger sum of money in college on something stupid that could have much larger implications. But my problem was I’m not awesome at always following through with a system, especially if it’s a more complicated one. I’m great at creating them, but not awesome at the follow through. I spent some time thinking it over this summer and talked to some moms I respect about how they handle chores and money in their houses. I liked a lot of their ideas. A week later a podcast I listen to came out with an episode on kids and chores and after listening to the 20 minute episode I was completely sold on how simple her system was. It was one even I could maintain!
This idea came from blogger & podcaster Kendra Adache who calls herself the Lazy Genius and is FULL of amazing hacks to make life simple. She has 3 kids and what she does is something she calls the Daily Sheets. I’ve been using this system for 6 weeks or so now and it’s been awesome. I had these two small white boards I wasn’t using, so I divided them into 7 sections, one for each day of the week. Each morning I put up on the board a few things I want my boys to do that day. For Aidan I’ll put up what his homework is (because in this stage of life I want him to know that’s part of his jobs/responsibilities each day), and for each of them I’ll come up with a couple of simple jobs. One of them might need to unload the dishwasher while I’m prepping dinner (at least what they can reach) and one might need to set the table. One might need to clear the table. They both will have “put away laundry” on days I know I’m doing their washing (I still fold it because I’m picky about their dresser—they share one and I can’t handle it getting out of control messy!). On the weekends it might be “help daddy in the yard” or “clean out mommy’s van". On trash night they collect the bathroom trash and replace the grocery bags in the cans. Nothing is time consuming, or difficult, but at this point I’m just trying to get them in the habit of checking what their jobs are and learning to do them correctly and without complaining. I don’t have to come up with who is going to do which jobs for the whole week, I add them each morning as I think through our day. They check off their jobs as they go and on the weekends it is “pay day” and they are paid for their work. They are required to put a certain amount in giving, a certain amount in savings (which eventually we will open accounts for them and begin depositing these small contributions into their bank account—it adds up over time!) and then the rest goes in spending and they can do what they want with it. It’s been a simple solution to a problem I’ve wanted to solve for a long time!
FIVE
As we start a new school year, I just wanted to post one more reminder about all those papers, worksheets and art projects that are beginning to make their way home! One of the things I wrote about this summer that got SO many comments and people mentioning it to me, was item number 3 on this particular Five on Friday post about what to keep and what to toss. If you’re already starting to feel overwhelmed and inundated with school papers maybe give that one a quick re-read and be empowered to admire and recycle—I promise you will not miss these things a year from now and your kitchen counter piles will thank you for not adding things to them that don’t really need to be there!
