But we are getting back on track!
We didn’t exactly walk away from our plan, but I’ve come to realize that implementing my goals (please see my previous post about running my house like a business…) is going to take some intense work and focus to start out – especially with a new baby who seems to insist on being held all the time. I know that once we can really adopt the good habits, I will be able to step back more and more.
Here is how it went down: we did GREAT for the first week and a half, and yesterday I realized that I was beginning to feel that same overwhelmed feeling and wondering what I could delegate when I realized I HAD delegated, and we had fallen off of our “take responsibility for our house” wagon. One night of my husband getting home late and the kids needing to rush into the tub and skipping the house pick up slips into two days in a row, which slides into me thinking, “oh it is just easier to do it myself” and that familiar weight of, “how can I even start on my work when THAT pile needs to be addressed,” and “I can’t possibly tackle that pile until the room is picked up” and pretty soon my day is shot.
Upon much introspection, I realized I would never allow a team of 20 very able adults to just go off alone after ONE project set up meeting and assume we would all be on the same page and the project would run itself, so why was I assuming these little people would be able to do it?? Even though everyone was very tired tonight and we are all fighting off colds, and it would have been MUCH easier to just get the kids to bed, we sat down and had a quick refocus ‘meeting’, did a quick house pick up, and agreed that we’d have a real meeting tomorrow night.
It amazes me that as soon as one of the original agenda items starts to slide the others head down the same hill. I noticed we were all snapping comments at each other and there was a real feeling of exasperation by the time we were finished with dinner. Kids are SO reflective. As soon as WE start to feel overwhelmed and are affected by the chaos in our environment, our tempers shorten and flare, and the kids immediately snap right back. Not okay for any of us.
Our new game plan is a weekly meeting to check in with everyone and see how everyone is doing with their responsibilities, posted checklists for the kids for morning and night routines, and a nightly check of our family calendar so everyone is prepared for the next day. I will have to ‘enforce’ these routines for a while, but hopefully we’ll get to the point that it just IS what we do every night.
My personal goal is to organize MY time so that I am focused and calm and ready to help them every morning and night as we get into our routine, and not worried about finishing this or that, or going through my to do lists in my head instead of giving them the 100% they deserve. That is possible, right?
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