Monday, June 2, 2014

MY KIDS GET MORE DONE WHEN I AM AT WORK

I am blogging this because I want to remember this.  When I feel guilty because I have to work and we can't go someplace or do something, I want to remember this.

I work two days a week.  I know, big whoop.  But I love my job.  I love getting out and being with other adults.  I LOVE books and reading so much and I love helping kids find books that might turn them on to a lifelong love of reading.  I love running library programs, making crafts and singing songs and reading stories to toddlers.

But, I often feel guilty because there is a co-op on Tuesdays that my friend takes my girls to and i had never even been there--until last week!  I feel bad that if we had those two days maybe we could do more outside classes or field trips or spend more time with friends.  Every few months I go through a crisis of thinking I should quit my job, but then my parents step in and take the girls to something on Mondays for me or my friend takes them to co-op on Tuesdays or a kid comes in to the library and gives me a gift or a mom tells me how their child loved the book I helped them select, and I just keep going along.

I took the last two weeks off.  We had been planning for months that the girls would paint their rooms and I knew having those extra few days would help.  My girls LOVE to decorate and we gave them free reign and a nice budget for their rooms and they both did AWESOME!  They did the painting themselves with my supervision.  That took three days between prep, painting and clean-up.  Another two days were spent shopping for things for their rooms--we had already bought some stuff and they had been looking on line and in stores so it really didn't take long to get everything together.  The girls are VERY happy with their rooms and they should be--we are so proud of how they turned out!!

I did finally get to go to that Tuesday co-op and see the place, meet some of the families i didn't know.  We went to Princeton Learning Center on Wednesdays.

I had great plans for school.  The usual list of goals for each week.  NONE OF THOSE GOALS WERE REACHED. NONE. ZERO. ZILCH.  ZIPPO.

Instead, because we had a whole day open to us, we joined our friends at the beach one day and a park with a cool stream another day.  We spent a whole day going through old photos of my husband's family to make photo collages for my father-in-law's memorial.  The girls had friends sleepover two nights in a row, because, I reasoned, we had TONS of time for school since I DIDN'T HAVE TO WORK.

I think that wide-open, we -have-tons-of-time feeling is why we got nothing done.  Like Scarlett O'Hara said, "Tomorrow is another day".  And Tomorrow...and tomorrow...and tomorrow....

Don't get me wrong, it felt good to just take each day as it came.  I am glad we had the experiences that we had.

But today when I was at work, my girls got several math lessons done, completed grammar packets, wrote book reports and spent an hour or more on Khan Javascript Programming.

My work schedule of one full day (Monday) and one half day (Tuesday) a week provides a framework in which my girls get a lot of math and writing and other "book" stuff done.  They can't go anywhere or do anything, so they are forced to do the work.  Wednesday is spent at PLC and then Thursday and Friday we are free to go and do as we please.  

My girls NEED the time I am at work to get their "book stuff" done.

We are very fortunate to have this forced discipline that works for us as far as getting stuff done.  We are also VERY fortunate that my boss is so cool and laid back and easygoing when I want to take time off to do something with my girls.

I am taking next Monday off so they can hear a Holocaust survivor speak at Princeton Learning Center (not our usual day).

I am just feeling very lucky right now to have the schedule we have.