Back from maternity leave…

For any of you who did not know, I gave birth to my fourth child at the end of March and went on “maternity” leave from my blog. It has taken me a little less than four months to get back on track. I thought I would come back “sooner” yet, it was recurring illness that kept me away. My other children had strep throat twice (six courses of antibiotics in all) and I battled a virus for nearly four weeks. I am grateful that everyone is feeling well. The baby sleeps for a good evening stretch so I am getting sleep too.

I have learned a couple things from having four kids….

Time Management

The reality is that you will never have enough time for everything you want or feel you “need” to do. You need to make peace with that reality and then go forward at full strength. I have learned to do things “right away” and plan “far in advance”. I try to do things as fast as possible too. I use the kitchen timer from time to time to keep me on track. I put it on with the mindset that I have fifteen minutes to get the kitchen clean. Most times I don’t get it done in fifteen minutes, but I do get it done quickly.

I may get less time for personal relaxation, yet I find more peace staying on top of things. I one time heard the saying “if you want something done, give it to a busy person to do”. It is dead on with a mom of small children. I feel that I get more done with four kids, than I got done with three kids…but then again, I do not really have a choice. However, I realize that I do have to make more sacrifices. Take blogging for example, I just could not devote time to it for sixteen weeks. If I had devoted time to it, it would have taken away time that I needed for the needs of my family.

Outsourcing

My six year old is amazingly helpful. Instead of trying to do everything myself, I give him jobs. He can find pajamas in the laundry basket and bring them to his room. He can buckle the four year old into his car seat. He can also assist the four year old in washing his hands and drying them. I ask him to do these tasks when I am feeding the baby or in the middle of a diaper change. Giving my six year old these tasks also teaches him the lesson that in a family, we all help each other get jobs done.

Get Creative

In order to have some minutes of quiet which is rare in a house with four boys, I have the kids go on “quiet time”. My friend Christine taught be about quiet time. The kids go to their respective rooms and play quietly for an age appropriate level. My six year old and four year old play for roughly forty-five minutes. These forty-five minutes enable me to accomplish tasks such as scheduling doctors appointments which are difficult with the normal ruckus going on at my house. My four year old packs up his backpack with cars and then heads up stairs to his bedroom and plays cars during that time.

Another tactic I use is providing my six year old and four year old with school work to do over the summer. I almost opted to home school my children so I never viewed learning as something that only occurred from September until the beginning of June. By giving my six year old reading and math workbooks, I am able to ensure that he will not lose what he gained over the school year and provide him with new learning experiences at a very relaxed pace. His assignments take him about thirty minutes to complete. I use books from A Beka. I love these books because you can use them without having to invest personal time in explaining the activity to your child. My son is working in Letters and Sounds 1 and the book is introducing suffixes. I would not know how to “teach” suffixes. However, the workbook presents a definition and then has the child circle suffixes and write suffixes. I would not say that my child loves his school time. He often hurries through it so that he can play which causes him to make mistakes. I guess he is developing his own sense of time management…the faster the school work gets done, the more time for play.

Sample work book page from Letters and Sounds 1

Having my six year old engaged in seat work every day has set a precedent for the four year old too. The four year old is now doing his own seat work in his own workbook. One of his assignments last week was to color the apples in his A Beka workbook the correct colors…some apples had a green outline, some had a red outline and others were outlined in yellow. This seat work will prepare the four year old for “4K” this coming September. He will participate in a full day program at the same school as the six year old.

I managed to reduce the time it takes to dust the house by giving the six year old and four year old Swiffers. I just discovered the “Swiffer” within the last year. It has changed my attitude toward dusting. Instead of lugging a vacuum cleaner all around the house, I just take out my Swiffer and quickly dust the place. When I give each kid a Swiffer, they set out to “dust” the house. They do get some of the dust. The dust “sticks” to the Swiffer so I know they have been working and it reduces the time I spend dusting.

Sleep

I can get by on less sleep…but I shouldn’t. When I get less sleep I am not able to move as quickly during the day and stay as focused. I get less done, then I must stay up later to complete my tasks. Since I am up later, I am more tired so I start getting hungry because I need more fuel to stay up. Then I eat late at night. This is thwarting my weight loss. I have nine pounds which do not want to budge. The baby sleeps for a good chunk of time in the evening and I need to make it a priority to get in a couple hours of sleep during that time to feel fresher and eliminate the need for eating later in the evening.

Do you have any kids? If so, what did you learn from having them? If not, have you experienced a change in your life which you learned from?