Week Two July 14 - 18 - Create An At Home Routine for My Daughter and Me

Warning: the following post is a little mundane. Considering that I don’t think many people are reading this yet, and this blog is sort of a self-indulgent endeavor for me, mundane is ok. And other parents who are transitioning from working outside the home to at home parents may be able to relate to this.

The plan for this week is to create a flexible weekly and daily schedule, which I created yesterday. This week I’m going to use the schedule as a guide. I’m not naïve enough to actually think that I will be able to follow this schedule to a “T.” Already I’m a little off of it. For example, the away from home activity for Tuesday is to go to a weekly “drop-in” at a community center for families in my town with children under 4. I went to the drop-in as planned, which lasted from 9:30-11:30. I was even able to stay until almost the end, but did end up leaving about 5 minutes early during circle time because Fiona was acting up and did not want to sit. She had a pretty amazing attention span for her age, sometimes sitting quietly for a whole 30-40 minutes, until she started walking a couple of months ago.

Next I ran to Ocean State Job Lot to find some inexpensive flash cards and musical toys for our scheduled Flash Card Time and Music Time. I estimated we would get home around 12:15 for lunch, which is already 15 minutes off schedule, but being anal isn’t possible with a 17 month old. I got home at around 12:15 as planned, and figured we would eat lunch, and maybe have 15 minutes of free play time before nap time at 1:00.

However, the drop-in must have worn the poor girl out, because when I went to get her out of the car seat, I noticed she was conked out. So Fiona’s nap time was moved up a bit, but I was starving, and went ahead and ate lunch without her. At the time of this writing, she’s still napping, and will undoubtedly wake up hungry at 1:30 or maybe even 2:00.

I was going to post the schedule but I’m not going to bother. Maybe if this blog generates some interest, and readers request it, I’ll post it. To most people, making a schedule for being a stay-at-home Mom may seem just a tad ridged. But I made one because without one, I’m afraid I would end up spending my days with Fiona in front of PBS Sprout TV. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good station for toddlers and preschoolers, but I don’t want to spend all of my time with Fiona sitting around in front of the TV. Also, I came from the corporate world, where I had schedules to follow and a to-do list. I’m afraid without some kind of schedule, I would feel a little lost.