3 kids, 2 hands, 1 Super Mom.

All by myself.. don't wanna be.. all by myself.. anymore!! (feel free to hum along)

I've been extremely blessed/lucky so far as I've had only one half day on my own with all three kids since Owen was born. And, he's nearly 5 weeks old. Not too shabby, eh??!!
Call me a wimp, I don't care, but for some reason, I'm petrified of being in my house alone with them.

So, in the lead up to being left alone, I knew I needed a plan. I good plan. A plan I could follow.

I've always loved having a routine. Every few months, I tweak what we do, write up a new schedule, print it & post it. But, I've never been that great at following it. So, what I've learned over the years is that I do routines, not schedules. I need a basic flow to my day so I (and they) know what's coming and what to do next.

But, how do you create a routine with a newborn who can't "do as they're told" ?? How can I create a routine when he might want food every 2 hours, or every 3 hours??

And then, to make it more complicated, 2 days a week the girls go to preschool. So, that's 2 trips in the car, that may or may not coordinate with a nap. So, do I create our whole routine around those 2 days that I need to be in the car? Or do I just hope Owen learns to be flexible enough to sleep or be awake as needed in the car??

Finally, do I consider Marco's schedule into my new routine? His work schedule is different every day, so I create different routines based on what he's doing, or do I just do my own thing and expect him to stay out of my way??

with all these questions circulating in my head, and with a muddled, sleep deprived brain to begin with, I started to put down on paper my new routine.

So.. This is what I've come up with:
Home Days Routine

I decided to create it based on a 3 hour feeding for Owen. However, I tried to make it so that should he wake at 2.5 hours, I can do a swap with neighboring activities for the girls to make it work. For example, during one feed I have Morgan doing some quiet play near me. However, if he were to wake 1/2 hour earlier, Kelsey is doing quiet play near me.
I chose to make our home days work, and then just figure out the preschool days separately. It ends up that on Preschool days, Owen will need to have one full nap in his car seat. and he'll need to be transferred to his car seat 1/2 hour before his normal wake time for the pickup. Not sure if it'll work, but I'm hopeful.
I also chose not to consider Marco's schedule. Its too varied. Besides, we have tonnes of house renovations to do yet, so if Marco is at home, he should be doing those (insert whipping noise here), and not bothering me. So, he should just stay out of my way.. or help.

So, here's to hoping it all works out. In my favor.

Brilliant Change table Solution!!

I'm currently 37 weeks pregnant with baby #3. So, we've been busy finishing up some renovations, selling small cars and buying big cars and getting stuff out of storage to get ready for this new baby!!

Thankfully, I've kept most things from when the girls were little so we don't need to buy a lot. However, one bigger item we need - besides a bigger car - is a new set of drawers (a dresser) for the baby's clothes and things. And, unfortunately, about a year ago, we sold my mammoth but perfect change table because it was just taking up WAY too much room. Anyway, so a while back I came up with the brilliant plan to find a dresser that was the same height as a change table and also deep enough to put my change pad on top. This should not have been a difficult thing.

Sidebar: This is what annoys me most about living where I do. I do not know why, but it seems that time after time, I have an idea that I know I've seen a gazillion places before, but when I want to make it happen in my home - well.. its only available in the big centers, or it costs a million dollars more than it should, or its only available overseas.

So, I started by shopping at the local shops. One local furniture store had the perfect dresser. However, it cost $450. Have I mentioned that we're poor?? So, I took the measurements from that dresser and began to scour TradeMe (the second hand website). Not very many around. And (as usual) most were in the big centers. So, after nearly 4 weeks of searching to no avail, a new place was devised.

It came about as I was making the bed in the baby's cot (crib). I was standing over it thinking, "I love this cot. Its such a great height." Then  - light bulb moment - "pity I can't change the baby on here."  Within moments (hours, actually) the husband had taken the change mat down from its storage space and placed it perpendicularly over the cot. Perfect!

My cot (crib) that my father-in-law made before Kelsey was born. Pardon the teeth marks - one of my children happens to be part beaver - must be her Canadian heritage!

So, with Morgan's doll demonstrating, here's how I envisioned my new  "change table"

So, Marco disappeared to his garage. Noises could be heard. And within 2 hours, he called for me to "come see!".

2 wooden boards with slats made up from the cut off slates from one of our new wooden blinds and a few tacks!! Genius! I added the velcro strips and VOILA!!

Here's the side view so you can see how it "attaches" to the crib (cot)

The whole thing is VERY lightweight to boot!! The only thing we're unsure of at the moment is how much weight it will hold. However, we put a sack of potatoes on, so we know it'll hold at least 4.5 kg - good enough for a newborn!! 

Oh, and the dresser issue was solved easily by bringing out one of 2 sets of small drawers that we were storing in the garage (and hoping to do up and sell sometime). So, we've pulled out the bigger of 2 drawers and Marco is currently in the garage sanding it down, putting new handles on it, and in 2 days - after a thorough oiling  - I'll get it in my house ready for baby clothes!! Woohoo!! (pictures to follow soon)

Trio of Terrific Tools!

Occassionally, I have brilliant ideas that make my life - and occasionally, the life of my family - easier.  Most of the time, though, I just copy my ideas from other people!! Here's my latest three ideas we've incorporated into our home.  

Countdown Chain   

  This idea is TOTALLY not mine. I got it from here: Children's Learning Activites: Countdown Chain . But, its totally cool. We're heading "home" to Canada in a few weeks and despite my best efforts NOT to tell Kelsey about the trip until we were in the air - Grandma's have a way of letting the cat out of the bag. So, here we sit with a 2 year old who everytime we put our shoes on, says, "Is it time to got o Canada now?"

Funny side story: We were getting ready to go for a walk yesterday when she (kelsey) comes up to me and says, "Mommy, I'm just going for a little walk to Canada now. I'm going to give Grandpa a big hug and a kiss. But I'll be right back.". Yep.. so something had to be done. So, this chain was the answer. I cut up bits of paper in varying colours. Wrote the necessity things on a few - Go to Canada, Preschool and Church and while Kelsey was decorating those ones, we talked about diffferent things she could do on the other bits of paper - things like, Vaccuum bedroom, make bed, Hug Daddy, Skype Grandma & Grandpa etc. So, as she decorated the bits of paper, I wrote the words and then stapled them together to form a HUGE chain.
And now, every moring at breakfast, we take off a chain and that's Kelsey's "task" for the day. Unfortunately, every day when I ask her to "read"  her paper, she insists it says, "Go to Canada"!! Soon, Kelsey.. soon!!

Meal Plan 

We've been meal plannign for a while now. The worst thing for me is standing in the kitchen at 4 or 5 pm and wondering what to make for dinner. I also hate making grocery lsits, having to go to the store for just one thing.. so.. to combat all those things, and to try to save money, we meal plan. I've always done a weekly plan. But its hte worst 1/2 hour of my week. Trying to come up with 7 meals that I want to eat at a time when I'm not hungry or motivated. Then, I had a brain wave. I thought, what if I had 4 weeks of menu's planned. I still shop once a week, and it was planned in such a way that I could still tweak the menu and have flexibility. Could it work?   So, I sat down and wrote down all my meals that I make. All the meals we like etc. At first I could only come up with about 14. That sucks -s o I checked with the hubby. He haed a few more ideas. Is tarted to throw them into a 4 weekly plan and suddenly, I realised I was done. I had done it. I had created a 4 weekly meal roster with flexibiltiy, but structure. There are a few repeats - we have always had pizza night once a week - however, even our pizza night can have variations. Firstly, its not always on the same night, sometiem we do mini pizzas, big ones, make our own crust, buy a crust, buy a hwole pizza, do a calzone etc. So many variations. 

Anyway, here it is for you:

Meal Plan

Just so you know, MPV stands for meat, potato, vegies. Talk about the ability to have variations!! 

Anyway, so far its working pretty good. Its not great for saving money, as you can't always predict what's goign to be on sale, however, if I know that next week we need a roast chicken, and its on sale this week, I can buy it early and freeze it. But, there are a few glitches to work out in that department - either that or I need a bigger freezer!!  

Magnetic "Schedule"

Finally, my last brilliant idea (or this week, anyway). I'm a sucker for structure. I love the idea of having a schedule for my kids, my cleaning, my work etc. I love routines, lists etc. I love knowing what I'm going to be doing, and I love knowing that if I do this thing now, I'll have time to do that other thing later. 

However, all that being said, I'm HORRIBLE at sticking to a schedule. I've made up so many schedules for me and my kids and stuck to none of them. They just don't work. My excuse is always that Marco's work roster interrupts my schedule, but, they jsut don't work. 

But now, I have a 2 year old. And there's something peculiar about 2 year olds - maybe especially first born two year olds - but they really like to have routine. They too, like to know what's coming next, what's going to be happening etc.  So.. I've done it.. I'm come up with somethig that gives my 2 year old the knowledge to know what's coming next, but me the flexibility to live our life. 

So.. here it is.. my magnetic schedule!

I made up all these little cards with the different things we do all day: One for each of the meals, tv time, Bible time, story time, nap time, roomtime, art time etc. I also made up some cards for different places we go to: Grocery store, Preschool, Church, Park etc. And on the back of each one, I stuck a peice of magnetic tape (which I had tonnes of lying around) I was going to do it with velcro, but I had the magnetic tape, and velcro dots were expensive! I painted a board from our shed, and my dear husband cut up some strips of metal and stuck it to the board so the magnets would have something to stick to.  Now, every morning I put up a few cards and go throught eh morning with Kelsey. First we'll have breakfast, then we'll watch tv, then we'll do some chores. Then we can do it again in the afternoon. I didn't want to have to do a whole day at a time, so I decided to only make the board big enough for a couple hours at a time. Kelsey absolutely loves it. The other day she says to me, "Mom, where's the black stroller?" I said, "Its over there. " She says, "NO, mom, the stroller on the card". She wanted to go out for a walk and wanted me to put up the "Walk" card first!! Isn't that cute?

Anyway.. that's it. These idea may be boring and stupid to you..but they've made a HUGE difference for me this month.