Structured Days

Arts and Crafts Time

Such Artistic Talent!

I'm a list person. I like to make lists and consequently scratch them off. I noticed with Trent, our best days tend to be when we schedule them out ahead of time. Otherwise, both of us get cranky by the end of the day. I can't schedule things down to the minute because there are a lot of "maybes" in our day. Maybe he'll eat a big lunch, maybe he won't. Maybe he'll sleep for 1 hour, maybe he'll sleep for 3 hours. The added structure has been great for both of us because we're not in a playtime haze and wondering what to do next. Just when he starts to get bored with something, we're onto the next thing. Here's an example of what I mean.
This was our Monday:
Breakfast, Get dinner ready in the crockpot, and kick off a load of laundry
Exercise
Errands/Play Outside
Cleaning (Trent loves to help)
Lunch
Naptime
Craft Time
Read/Puzzles
Dinner
Playtime with Daddy
Bath Time
Bed Time

It has been working for us all week. Each day is different depending on what appointments or agendas we have to get through. However, it's so nice to have a general plan of what we want to accomplish throughout the day. I'm sure it'll go back to chaos for a little while after number 2 gets here, but for now it's working well so I'm sticking with it. :)

The other nice thing is the lack of television. Everyone has their own views on TV time at this age. I'm not a huge fan. We don't have cable at our house, but we do have Netflix. Netflix has an extensive instant streaming library so if I really need to get something done, I can pop on an episode of Veggietales, but for the most part, the TV does not get much use in our house. Pandora gets a TON of use though. Our little boy loves music, so we have praise music or toddler music playing all.the.time.