Every once in awhile I really over schedule our lives without even realizing what is happening until I am in the thick of it and can not turn back. We are smack in the middle of one of those weeks! It creeped up on me, I committed to things one at a time even after checking my schedule and seeing the other items there. It was not the calendar as much as it was a lack of planning and lack of honesty with myself about what exactly was involved and how much time each thing would take and more importantly how they would interact with each other.
Monday was our first glorious day of the year. We still managed to complete a very full school schedule, doubling up in anticipation of the rest of the week. Then we took a long walk outside and ran errands at the same time, had an easy quick dinner, bedtime and then my moms bible study. It was a good day the kids even built outdoor forts on our deck and did school outside.
Tuesday was St. Patrick's Day and we added in some Ireland and St Patrick history study on top of subjects, it only comes once a year and we are very Irish. We listened to Irish music and cleaned and cooked and did party prep. The kids also had their regular weekly art class, when the party started I wondered how many hours there were in a day? I did enjoy myself and was able to relax some even with playing the role of hostess. Still it was another long and full day and I crawled into bed entirely too late for the second day in a row.
Today began with a late start, dropping Serona at work and heading to the Mall of America for our annual Scavenger Hunt. This year the group size was small, just two groups. The kids had a good time and we stayed for lunch as well. After running around the mall for an hour looking for various things and taking crazy pictures I was tired but somehow their energy level seemed even higher. We got home and I gave them an hour outside while I caught up on bills and emails then we resumed work on our homeschool fair projects. It was then I started to feel the pinch and realize I had done this too myself and had no one to blame.
Each of the kids is doing a seperate project and I thought it would not be a huge deal and left the bulk of the work until this week, they had done much of their research and planning already all that was left was putting the boards together and some supply gathering. I did not realize that given their ages 9, almost 8 and 5 they were all going to require my help for a lot of what they did. Maria had done all of the research on her own but needed help with sizing font, text formatting and figuring out how to best fit all her information in a logical and aesthetic way. Ciaran needed help with typing, deciding what to include, teasing out his ideas and putting it all together and Sirah needed help with nearly everything she did. It was a busy day for all of us and they all seemed to want me at the same time. We worked on it straight for about 3 hours until dinner and then heading to church. Everyone made great progress but no one is finished and the fair is tomorrow night. This means tommorrow will be regular school work, finishing this and then heading to the fair. I am thinking a crock pot meal will work best, hope I have what I need here since a trip to the store is not in the plans for tomorrow.
Friday somehow I managed to get myself in another overburdened schedule. I have set up, clean up, snacks and am teaching all three hours of homeschool cooperative! Another early morning after another long night. All of these things are good things, all of them are worthwhile and good for my kids and none of them individually would be too much, even a few in this week would be fine. It was more the combination of them all together, trying to coordinate driving schedules with Serona and getting everything done well. Not to mention cleaning, laundry and meals.
I fully acknowledge this was a me problem, this was a poor planning problem but now I am in the thick of it and tonight - the night before the homeschool fair I am out looking for a shadow box for mice bones from an owl pellet and a stuffed owl. After running to more stores than I care to recall we found both and we have checked off the last of the supplies needed for tomorrow. Thankfully Maria had all the rocks, minerals and gems she needed here for her project and Ciaran has more frogs then anyone can imagine. No live animals are allowed and he does not have his yet, though a new pet addition to our family is not likely long off in the future.
I need to remind myself to avoid the problem of good and plan more sanely next time.
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