Reinventing Fun...

I am blessed to have a great mother. As a stay at home Mom, she devoted herself to mine and Chrissy's every need. She always kept us on a schedule, ironed all of our clothes, and kept an impeccably clean house. I am not my mother.

I made up my mind early on in motherhood that I wanted my children to always feel two things about our home: that it was full of love and that it was a place where they could always feel safe. In my mind, that also meant our house should be FUN. I do things with my kids my mother would never dream of: we fingerpaint, cook together, blow bubbles (inside!) and we play with toys--alot! Josh would tell you that that he is certain that the house is run by the deckhands and not the captain. And that is probably more true than I like to admit.

However, as we have added children and my to-do list has gotten longer, it has been harder to let freedom and imagination be the rulers of our roost. The kids have been on summmer vacation for a week and a half. They have spent all of that time visiting both sets of grandparents and today was the first day that all three children have been at home. Toys were scattered everywhere, there was a trail of books down the hall. I had to referee a couple of sessions of Smackdown and never said anything more than "Stop," "No", "Don't!" When we pulled into the driveway after a trip to the store, Ian and Will exited the van, pulled down their shorts and proceeded to water my lawn---in the front yard! An hour later, Will walked into the kitchen pulling a jump rope behind him. To my surprise, Maggie was dragging behind with the other end of the rope tied around her waist. She was his "Nanny goat" and they were "headed to the market." In that moment, I knew that for the sake of my sanity, the summer could not be one of total freedom.

So I did something that my mother would do. I made a schedule. We are going to take all the calamity that we do every day and try to put it into a more workable system. We will have time for reading and rest, free play, and learning--art, science and history. I wrote it out on posterboard, included pictures for Will, hung it on the wall and unveiled it for the boys. Ian was tentative at first but eventually gave me a thumbs up. Will studied it for a while. I read it to him, showed him the pictures, and he just shrugged his shoulders and went to play. Before bed tonight, I caught him looking at it again. So I said, "Will, what do you think about the schedule?" He looked at me and said, "It looks BOOOOORING!" I wanted to respond by saying "Really? You're 3, you don't even know what that means" but instead put on my happy face and said, "It will be fun, once you get used to it." His response, "Does Mags have to follow the schedule?" Me: "Yes--she will just rest more than you." He thinks about that a while and finally says with certainty, "I think I am gonna keep things the way they are, except I think we should eat more ice cream."

Say a prayer tomorrow---Will is going to need it!