For Fun: What Do You Do After Your Kids Go to School?

K.,
I too am a later in life Mom of a 9 yr old son and 9mth old son.
I read,for fun usually While the baby takes a nap.

Other things for fun,Preschool/baby time at the local library.
Neighborhood pool in the after noon.

I keep my house in pretty good order with the Fly lady
http://www.flylady.net/index.asp . It is keeping me accountable and allowing me to interact with other adults via online forums and blog talk radio. Give it a try it may work for you too.

By the sound of it K.,

I think your awesome! Nobody ever believes us when we say that working outside the home was a beautiful thing compared to being a stay at home mom.

I love my boys, (15 and 12 yr. olds) but God knows, in the outside world, for the most part, people respect other peoples boundaries, clean their own messes, feed themselves, and organize their own lives!

Mine, as you can tell by their ages, are toward the end of school more so than just starting, but still keep me jumping with I forgot this or that, can you bring me this or that, I don't feel good etc etc etc. If i were not here in the morning, NOBODY would make it to school! LOL

And they have both added to their vocabularies..... YOU forgot to remind me and its your fault for not reminding me!

The outside world has never made my mind go WHAT???? as much as my kids have been able to.

I finally get to finish a cup of coffee at around 9, and, I savor it as long as I can.

My house will never win any awards either for Good Housekeeping OR House Beautiful, but that's ok, i have people to love, feed, and form, the house, can wait so long as its basically kept up with, i'm good! LOL

Hi K. -

Loved your email and some of the responses you received. I really don't have any wonderful advice, but I had to respond to your email. I just started laughing! It is so true what you are saying. I have a 5 year old that just started kindergarten and a 3 year old daughter. I struggle with laundry and cleaning and organizing my home. I moved here from Michigan in January. It still looks so bare in my house and let's just say that I do not have the gift of interior design. As far as after the bus stop time - this is what mine looks like - starting with waiting for the bus - I talk to other mothers at the bust stop while waiting for the bus and I talk with them while the kids run around after the bus. I, too at the end of the day just want to "kick back", but then there is dinner to prepare and getting everyone ready for the next day. I agree with you about what you said about working outside the home. It is so different than staying home. I worked for 10+ years and stopped when we moved here. I think one big transition at a time is enough. I do have a very smart friend that continually reminds me that if We as Mothers are not good to ourselves then it is very difficult to be good to anyone else! Just food for thought when you are enjoying your cup of coffee and reading the paper after you return home from the bus stop. I am most likely drinking a diet coke and flipping through the pages of REAL SIMPLE magazine!

When my kids were little we would get up and I would take them to aerobics. They hung out in the daycare while I got me time. When we got home I could then concentrate on them. Enjoy doing the house work with them. I know it takes twice as long. But just roll the towels instead of folding them and have them put their towels on the bottom shelf. They will be so proud of themselves. Enjoy this time; it will pass by so fast.

Hi K., I had to respond to your posting because I liked so much of what you said. We started later with our kids too. We have a 4 1/2 year old and a 1 year old - she sleeps with us too ;-0). My son will be in pre-school next week. I have just signed up for a Moms in motion class that starts in September. You exercise with your little one (crawlers up to 3 yr old) and make it fun for them too. I cant wait to try it out. this is the site http://www.healthymomsnc.com/tots.asp
I also do a part time biz from home and help other moms do the same. I blog too ... http://bizformomsonline.blogspot.com/ although I have been slacking due to a lot of travel recently - yay we are staying put a long time now!
I dont clean my house as nearly as often as I need to!
Thanks for your posting! D.

Enjoy life
It seems you deserve it.
Don't worry so much about keeping up cleaning.
You home is full of special moment in time
If you do clean. do a little at a time.
Then enjoy life special moments for they are only
there for awhile. Then they growup to have their own.

You are hysterical. I would relax with a cup of coffee and a newspaper!!!! If I stayed home that is what I would do.

It may sound selfish, but I try to spend a little bit of each day on me. Take a bath, paint my nails, read a book, keep up with my online correspondence, whatever i'm in the mood for. Something that relaxes me and puts me at ease. That way when it comes time for that pile of laundry or dishes or time to bath the dog, I'm not so stressed and it doesn't seem like that much of a task. Plus it keeps me sane to have some 'me' time.

You sound alot like me when I started staying home. I started working from home when my kids were 5 and 2. She was in Kindergarten and he was in preschool 2 days a week from 9-2. I had all these great ideas about how the house was gonna be straight and I was going to cook dinner every night, etc. Needless to say I discovered pretty quick that the only way to keep the house clean when the kids are there all the time is to follow them around 24/7 and pick up behind them. NOT gonna happen. The fact that I was also working 30-40 hours a week out of my house also killed the cooking every night idea because as you mentioned just trying to keep the kids alive is hard enough without actually throwing work in on top of it. I don't really have anything to suggest as far as things to do, I just thought your posting was cute and wanted to say you sound like you are doing a great job even if Good Housekeeping will never give you their seal of approval.

Relax with 3 year old and and 8 months old???????My SIL has kids with same age differance, and I remember that it was actually harder on her when her oldest started shcool. Her 3 year old was complaining that he had nobody to play with and she could not get anything done because he wanted to be played with all the time. This year she has 2 in school full time and one part time. That's the time to relax:)

I dont have any advise :( But I just have to say that your request cracked me up. Thanks for the smile.

L.

I enjoyed the time with the other ones. They need their alone time as well. Just wait till that last one goes to school!
Take it easy and enjoy your other kids without one more to divide the time. Don't worry about the house. The cobwebbs will be there in the next 6 yrs then you can worry about cleaning them out.
Have fun.

K.,

We actually homeschool, but since you have a 3 yr old at home there are at ton of things you can do to keep that one active and learning, thus not finding trouble or trouble finding him/her.

You could also get involved in a MOPS (Mothers of Prescholers) group in your area or a playgroup this way not only is your 3 yr old meeting friends so are you. :

You could also have your 3 yr old HELP you, yes I said, HELP do the laundry, break an egg stuff like that, help sort laundry, or fold the dish towels etc.. they feel like they too have accomplished something when they help.

We had my DD help put the utensils away from the dishwasher at 3 except of course for the knives.

Make it a game.

You actually can "PLAY" with your 3 yr old... go for a walk, get your errands done early...

Every family is different and you know your children best, so with that said, you have to think outside the box...

well, mine aren't in school really yet. I have a 4yr old and 10 mth old. THe oldest goes the MDO twice a week though. After drop off in the morning I usually take the baby on errands: grocery store, etc. Then we come home in time for the baby's morning nap. I usually do the minimal house work I make myself do everyday- putting a load of laundry in to wash and vaccuuming and cleaning 1 part of the house. (I've mentally divided my house into 3 sections and do 1 part a day, taking Sundays off from both cleaning and laundry). Then the baby's up so the resy of the day is shot until pick up time. But when we get home its time for afternoon nap. They both sleep and this is mommy time. I read or play a game and usually move the load of laundry to the dryer. Despite my planning, it sounds like I should have a clean house doesn't it, I never get but just started on cleaning when the baby wakes up. I should give up mommy time I guess to clean more but Its my only blissful break before hubby coming home and dinner and bath and bedtime. I do get more done the 2 days the oldest goes to MDO. He doesn't start school until next fall when he's 5 1/2 because his birthday's in Feb. I'm looking forward to it though.

Three of my four kids are in school. One of my older sons plays baseball and we started this "baseball moms" group. "Baseball moms gone wild!" is what we call ourselves. We are actually pretty tame. :o) We first got to know each other on a spring break with the baseball team and sitting in the bleachers at ball games together. We meet about once a month and go out to dinner, to a movie, go swimming in someone's pool, etc. We have even had a BB mom's slumber party. We have a great time together. We all have busy lives, with jobs, spouses, kids, kid's activities, etc. It is just nice to take some time "just us girls" and relax and have fun together. I would encourage every woman to find or create a support network of women friends. It has really enriched my life.