Flexibility can be a dangerously delightful thing

All around the mommy blogosphere you hear about schedules...getting infants on one, creating a housework schedule, a homeschool schedule, you'll get more done when every minute is accounted for and allotted something to do.

Being as organizationally-challenged as I am, I tried methods like that. I even tried this one and it did work for a while.  However, while it may have made things better in the short term, my ADD-induced anxiety worried more about "the schedule" and keeping it than on life.

So, while I *need* organization, it needs to work for *me*!

So, when I started homeschooling the Vikings, I was ALL about  making a schedule and keeping it. But, again, the structure backfired. The increase in stress just overrode the plusses of the schedule.

But, there's the stress of not having *any* structure is just as bad. So what's a momma to do?

We just roll with it. Leave much of it in God's hands. Remember our priorities and the *why's* of what we are doing.

Some days are better than others. Stuff gets done - sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes school gets done in the morning - sometimes in the afternoon. Sometimes we run errands in the morning with DaHubby - sometimes at 7pm.

Oddly enough, it works.

For us.

And, that's all that matters.

Another reminder that just because "all" or "most" people do something a certain way, it doesn't mean that we have to. We did this for our kids. We did this for our family. And, it's gonna look a little different than the way anyone else does it.

A good week.

A glimmer of hope.

A glimpse of improvement.

We didn't finish all I had planned. We didn't even do all five days - we took a day off when DaHubby's bonus check came in to go out to breakfast as a family and then splurge on the kids with a $70+ trip to Michael's crafts in Rockford for those infuriating rubber bands and rainbow looms. LOL And, today is technically a day off from OUR curriculum as they spend the morning at our homeswchool co-op's "Friday school."

But, ya know what? I didn't yell. ALL week! Well, I raised my voice yesterday in frustration at Flicka for he whining about what work I did ask her to do but that was more about her attitude than about school per se.

Modern medicine is a wonderful thing. LOL

For the first time in several years, I've started enjoying this momma thing again.

One day at a time is still too long

I'm gonna have to go hour but hour to ever feel like I'm making any progress.

My ineffectual coping, my weaknesses have become like an addiction that I have to be hyper-vigilant, hyper-conscious about minute to minute and hour to hour.

Our day went wonderfully today...

until it didn't.

Chores. Playing. To-do's. School.

But, then I get stressed. I'm tired of answering questions. I'm tired of their delays. I just need them to MOVE and do what I told them.

That was the beginning of the end. From then on, I'm walking a hair-trigger stress to get stuff done, be places on time, balancing, completing, crossing stuff off, etc.

And the noise! My noise sensitivity starts. I can't think. I can't talk. I can't finish anything with the noise, interruption, distraction. They're just being kids. It's only a question from my hubby but I'm irritated by it all.

School suffers. Relationships suffer. I don't get anything done. And, I feel like a failure.

I'm so far under and beneath the trees that the forest is just a dream I can't quite even picture yet.

And, in the meantime, I'm wasting their precious days at home.

This wasn't what I wanted. This isn't what it was supposed to look like.

But, I don't know how to stop.