Well, it has been a while since I have written. It has been a busy month since, I have told my nanny about staying home and started wrapping up shop at the high school I work at. This month has been filled with busyness, stress, fear, excitement, sadness, and anxiousness. My last day on Friday was one of the hardest days I've ever had. Not only did I have to say good bye to the 150 high school students I enjoy working with on a daily basis, I had to part way with my co-workers for a year, and then, hardest of all, I had to say good bye to our nanny of the past 2 years. I was on the verge of tears all day on Friday. The worst was coming home from work and having to say good bye to Linda, our nanny. She was so much more than childcare for our children. She was a source of family to me out her in So. CA, so far from my family back home in the midwest and my family up North. I was okay pretending along my way until I saw the look on her face as she was being driven away from my home. I know I have been truly blessed to have her in our lives these past two years. After that good bye, I only had the energy to crawl in bed with the twins and watch "Land Before Time" until my husband got home. I think what made the goodbyes harder than expected was an underlying fear of the unknown....not knowing if I made the best decision for our family. Is all of this sadness for so many involved going to pay off.
Well, today shifted me right out of the goodbye blues and into action. Today was day 1 of my staying at home schedule, and although it rained the entire day, I felt great. I had a great sense of accomplishment by the time I sat down to write this blog. Today was a great day! The kids played well today all day and I got a lot of necessary things done to make sure we are going to be happy in our own home for this next year. I wanted to de-clutter the house and I got a good part of that done today, while the kids played together nicely for most of the morning. I worked on minimizing the fridge clutter, and the rearranging the kitchen and organizing closet and laundry room spaces so that everything had its place and we were free from piles everywhere. I moved the kids work table into the kitchen so I don't have to worry about the carpet when we paint or play playdoh. It really opened up the front room to have that table out of there. I reorganized the video's to be in the closet next to the TV instead of being in piles around the TV. I even ventured into the garage. WATCH OUT! I was on a ROLE! This was all before noon (I think I made the coffee a little too strong this morning.)
In the afternoon, I taught the kids their daily preschool lesson and felt good about how it went. I found 2 year old preschool lesson plans online and my kids love when we do, "school time." I love it too, and it makes me feel better about them not being enrolled in a preschool program. I also felt like I stuck to my guns well today. I had consequences for misbehavior and I stuck to them and I saw the shift I was looking for. All and all, after feeling successful today, it made me feel a whole lot better about being so down on Friday.
As we move forward, I am going to be trying to work on scheduling. My goal is to schedule an educational component, an outing/social activity each day, and schedule "field trips" once a week to either, Sea World, the SD Zoo, the CV Nature Center, library,or and indoor play facility once a week. I know the also needs to be balanced with laundry, cleaning, cooking (I will need lots of help trying to figure this one out). Just re-reading this last paragraph.....I think I need to go out and get one of those giant dry-erase calendar boards. Maybe the left over pages in my teachers plan book will do. We will see. Today was a good day, but I know they will not all be like this.
