What a morning. See, we had the kids calming down in quiet time by 8pm and by 9pm both were tucked into bed. They woke up this morning with big smiles and pleasant attitudes. As did Mom and Dad since we were in bed at 10 and 11pm respectively. What sleep can do for a family!
So my wonderful children were kind and helpful. My daughter sat down at 9am and we took out a page up Key to Fractions that had given her trouble last week. It was on mixed fractions and after playing with pattern blocks for a few minutes she got what she'd been missing before and whipped through the work. Math Mammoth was done in record time with no whining and a lot of smiles. Next were a few logic puzzles that gave Catherine so easy a time I've resolved to hunt done some more dificult ones for her later.
And then we turned on the kids music station and danced around the living room. Much shaking of arms and wiggling of bums. The rest of the day so far has been me cleaning or reading blogs and the kids playing on their own.
I used to resist giving the kids a bedtime. I thought it would be better to let them discover their own rhythym and if it meant they went to bed at 11pm, so be it. They were listening to their bodies. Except bedties aren't just about individual children, they're a tool that keeps the family unit running smoothly. Some families can cope very well with with no bedtime but ours tends to split at the seams. Kids stay up late so I do as well. I wake up early to welcome my neice and am inevitably crabby due to the lack of sleep. Since the house isn't even 800 sq. feet (a cough on one side of the house wakes the sleeper on the other side) the kids wake up early as well and we're all barely dragging ourselves around the house for the day (I didn't mention the husband because he generally gets to run away to work). So bedtimes it is, for the kids AND for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment