Time to FLY

Figured I had better update now before I got distracted and everyone started yelling at me again. ;)

Last night I decided that my house has become out of control and it is time to give a FLYlady type thing another try. I made a list of things that need to be done daily, every-other-daily (what is the other word for that?), weekly, and monthly. I divided my house into five zones. I wrote out a daily schedule of sorts. Not really a schedule, more of a list of things to do and a general order in which they should be done. For example: get up, make coffee, empty dishwasher, shine sink, drink coffee & have computer time (I think I need to establish a time limit on this one), check laundry (start, switch, fold, or put away - whatever needs to be done), breakfast, get dressed, pick up living room, do school, have lunch, check laundry, etc. I'm doing pretty good with it so far. I got all the dishes dealt with before I even woke up the computer and I finally folded the mountain of clean laundry that's been sitting in my room for two days. So then I got ready for the day while the kids put their laundry away and then it was school time.

I told Cameron that I was not going to let him be afraid of reading any longer. I have a whole stack of readers that he would LOVE if he would just give them a chance but he has been too scared to try. Yesterday a Jedi Reader called Jar Jar's Mistake came in the mail. It was a Step 1 reader and yet he still said he "couldn't" read it. No more. Today I made him read it. I sat down on the floor and pulled him into my lap and helped him through the whole thing as patiently as I could. And he did it! I still don't think he has any sort of confidence about it, but he did do it - with very little help, really - and I think with some practice he will enjoy being able to read those by himself. I hope. Next he did two math exercises. We're still working on adding and subtracting 1s or 10s from numbers to 100. The subtracting 10s throws him a little but he only has to think about it for a second. Next we did science. We did part of one of the workbook exercises where you had to name different bones, but the rest of it just looked too dull for even me, lol. I grabbed our Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia and read a couple of sections on the skeleton, the skull, and the structure of bones & joints. Then I grabbed another book on the body that I had and read some more about bones - I learned a few things too. I had a couple a other books to flip through, including the Cyclopedia Anatomicae (I should probably save that one for when we study the muscular system though), but they asked to be done with school. We had already spent longer on science than on reading and math combined, so I agreed.

Next I made lunch and settled down to a chapter of Harry Potter on the back porch. Cameron and Cassia played LEGOs. Greyson mowed the concrete out back. After I finished my chapter, I came inside and set the timer for 15 minutes. I told them that we all had to spend 15 minutes straightening up. Cassia was too tired. Cameron just plain didn't want to. I informed them that anyone who didn't help was losing a dollar from their piggy banks. Suddenly, everyone was willing and able. ;) After we finished, I told them that we would be doing that at least twice a day from now on and that that would help us to keep our house clean so that it wasn't such an ordeal to clean up each time. Amazingly, they agreed. We'll see if they remember their agreement when it's time to do it again, lol.