Muffin Tin Monday and Mayhem

It's Monday... time to put the peanut butter away and feed the kids something different!  Owen is proudly showing off his plate.  We've got chicken nuggets, ketchup, Colby cheese stars with mini multi-grain Club crackers, vanilla yogurt with star sprinkles, baby carrots and cucumber slices and diced cantaloupe.  Cantaloupe has become a recent love of Owen's - he can't get enough of it.

Last Monday, our June calendar looked pristine.  Lots of empty, white boxes.  Only a few routine things were listed there, like school days, karate and boy scout camp.  By Wednesday, June 1st, our calendar looked like this:

WTF?

I am a firm believer in not over-scheduling kids.  One sports activity.  ONE.  (In our case, that would be karate).  But I am also a firm believer that kids need to know how to swim.  Lessons are completely out of the question during any other season than in the summer.  It is disgusting how much private swim lessons cost these days, and the 'small' group is more like LARGE group.  Summertime small-group swim lessons at the neighborhood pools are the only way to go for us.  So, unfortunately, the entire summer schedule is at the mercy of the lessons.  For Jordan, it means swim team.  He is beyond lessons, but his swimming skills are less-than-stellar, so for him, this is the answer.  Luckily, swim practice begins at 6:50 am and is over at 8:30... which is just in time for Rylan's lesson, at the same pool. 

What I am a sucker for is those one-day or short-session classes.  Archery.  Cooking.  Gardening.   I initially think - "Hey, it's just for six weeks.  That's not so bad!".  Oh, but it is bad.  In an already busy day, it is very, very bad.  It means that we will be lucky if we get in even an hour's worth of lessons - which will mean mostly workbook stuff and reading in the car.  Nothing 'meaty'.  It means living on whatever is in the snack box in the diaper bag.  I would love to be the uber-mom and have a cooler all packed and ready to go - just swing by a park as we are out and about.  Let's get real - I have no shame!  We're living off of the pretzel pieces we find on the floor of the minivan!

School schedule.  I schedule our school year to run from June1st through May 31st.  It has just kind of morphed into that.  You may have noticed that I now have tabs at the top of the page, one for Rylan and one for Jordan, that lists their subjects, the curriculum we use, and their schedule.  I have been tinkering with the schedule a lot lately because I suck at accountability.  I have to find a way to keep myself honest.  So, I came up with a spreadsheet to count up our hours.  I've looked at Homeschool Skedtrack, but I think it is more than we need - and honestly, I just need a way to count up the minutes.  Do I really think some person in a suit is going to come knocking at the door, asking for proof that we did the requisite time (694 hours)?  No, but I just know that in the past four years of homeschooling, we have not hit that mark as of yet.  And we need to.  So to make that happen, over that past year we've adopted a year-round schedule, a daily schedule that ensures that I've allotted time towards every curriculum element that I feel we need to, and that every child has a chance for some one-on-one time.

Now, if I could just figure out the 'me' time....