Lately the girls and I are all over the place with our routines. I'm not sure if it's the mid-winter blues, or the fact that we've had a bunch of little annoying illnesses coming one after another, but we are just not in that well organized, expectations met and managed, to-do list done place we were in September.
Then I get frustrated, and I feel behind and like I'll never get caught back up, and we're always chasing our tail, and we weather set back after set back.
I'm a grown up. When I fall apart, it's me who has to make up the time and re-force the habits. But if I let the girls fall into bad habits, it's doubly hard. They've gotten used to me not bugging them to clean their rooms, asking them to empty the dishwasher. They get used to not having to put away the laundry. They get used to having school stuff scattered here, there and everywhere. And when I'm finally pulling myself back into routine, I have two kids who are used to no expectations.
So, yeah, that's not great. The girls are normal kids. They're nice and helpful and they'll do what's expected of them, but if I don't expect things, they don't do them. And rebuilding those habits are HARD.
So I took a page from a friend's book (although her kids are older and it's more about phones and curfews and driving) and we wrote it all out. All the expectations. What they need to do, what I need to do, and how we're going to get it all done. How much time we dedicate to school, to home maintenance, to practicing, everything. They're old enough, and understand enough, to see the whole picture and how they fit in.
Will it work long term? Who knows. Slumps happen, busy seasons happen, life happens. But I'm hoping that we can work together to get ourselves back on track.