We are nearing the end of the first full week of Summer vacation. So far, so good. The boys exclaimed that this is the best summer ever. I'll take it.
One of the things I wanted to do with the boys this summer is to get them in a good exercise routine. We have a very safe neighborhood with almost no traffic where our street lies. There is a perfect block that isn't too big that the boys and I will jog. The boys track their laps. I snagged the below "Aerobic Activity Log" from an already made format on our Works Spreadsheet program. (I'm NOT good with works so there's some things that I deleted and just left there, etc. If I were smart it would look a bit different. But I'm just grateful I had something to work with!) This is how our morning goes:
We all sit down and stretch together. After stretching we eat breakfast and the boys brush their teeth and get ready to run. After running (oh and I just walk with Blake, if you were wondering) we go back inside. I then test Peter and Andrew on their sit-ups, push-ups, and toe reaches. I also time how long they can hold up their bodies with their palms on the high stools(I'm sure there's a real name for it but I just call it a body lift). The kids love trying to beat the previous day. It also allows us to talk about muscle groups, how to do a good stretch, how to push your body without overexerting, and how to make healthy and attainable goals.
If you'll notice Peter's sit ups and push ups went down by a lot. Each day I work a little harder and their technique. For example, kids do not naturally understand how to position their body for a push-up so I'm helping by holding their midsection and thereby taking a lot of their weight off the muscle that should be working. I'm hoping that by the end of the summer they will be able to have good form.
Beside our new work-out regimen, I've also been able to tag piano practicing on to the morning routine. It has been great and worked really well. Even today, when we had somewhere to be early this morning so the exercising it going to happen in the evening, they still sat down and did their piano. Blake will even "take a turn" which means he pounds the keys from low to high, high to low, black keys, white keys, and then he'll put a keyboard diagram on his keys and say his letters while playing his notes.
I've made a chart to help organize my week.
No I don't do everything perfect and I've changed things a bit. But since I've only four more weeks of pregnancy, if I didn't have ideas laid out for every day, I'd probably just lay on the couch all day long and yell at the kids periodically to stop fighting. This way, for example, the kids know that we go to the pool M W F so they don't bother me about it T and TH. I did make a journal jar that has journaling ideas for the kids. They take turns each day picking out a topic then write and draw whatever they want.
I decided to change how I do chores for the summer because it just works better for me to play the chores a bit by ear right now. Most days my energy has been pretty high so I can do a lot of things myself, then have the kids fill in the blanks.
I find it interesting that I feel less stressed about the house and find it easier to do chores with the kids home all the time. I think partly it has a lot to do with not being so alone all the time. Yesterday I let Peter go to his friends house. Within a half an hour I felt extremely bored and didn't want to do anything. I realized that I really really enjoy my kids being with me. I cheated and just took the other kids to his friends house and hung out with his friends my (my friend).
Do my kids have to go back to school after summer? Am I going to be singing a completely different tune in another week? We'll see.
So far, so good. Woah. Deja Vu.
