Quality Time?

The start of the school year tends to prompt me to evaluate how I've been spending time with my kids. Maybe all the talk about new activities and curriculums get me to thinking about all the things we've talked about doing together that have fallen to the wayside because something else was more pressing, or perhaps just more persistent.

It's no suprise that after such a busy time I would feel like I haven't been "doing enough" with my kids. Truthfully, I've been "doing" plenty; sometimes I think I should be awarded Chaufeur of the Year. Or maybe Activities Facilitator of the Year would be more concise. I guess the stuff that's been falling by the wayside is the stuff I like, and that's what prompted me to take a second look.

I decided, as part of my new, slower season of the year, that I wanted to set aside a special time with the girls to just do stuff together. Not "running around and going places" stuff (we always seem to make lots of time for that), but "hang out around the house and explore the wealth of interesting things we can do together right here in the comfort of our own living room" stuff.

I worried that the girls would think that I just want to "Do School", so I've assured them that this is optional; attendance is not required. For the last few days we've spent about 2 hours together each morning after Tamzin heads off to Kindergarten. We're reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. They are loving it, in spite of my concern that the language would be tough. Dickens paints the funniest pictures of his characters, it's hard not to enjoy the caricatures he creates. We've also done some drawing, read some myths, and started a timeline project. I'm really enjoying having enough time to just relax with the girls.

What they are really wanting is to use this time to do crafts. While I want us to do stuff we will all enjoy, I want to be able to enjoy it too, so I have been procrastinating about starting a major project (Gillian wants to build a paper mache city). I'm afraid that the planning, set up, and clean up of a craft like that will leave me feeling everwhelmed. We did a cutting and pasting project the second day and it took a long time to clean up for dinner.

Remember, I'm still recovering from the ride. Reading a book is so easy. I think tomorrow we should play some games. It's fun and easy, and the clean up is minimal.