Lionden Landing

This week is our first week in our new home.  I have been making a considered effort to establish routines.  This is a combination of the Charlotte Mason philosophy which is guiding our homeschooling as well the more practical advice from FlyLady. I have my personal morning routine before anyone else in the house gets up which includes walking the dog, getting both him and I some much needed exercise.  I get breakfast on the table awaiting people.  When Froggy gets up she makes her bed, gets dressed, and we daven together.  Then we have breakfast and do school.  Then we take the dog for a short walk and begin our day specific tasks or errands. For right now this mostly involves getting unpacked, shopping or going to the park.  In the fall, Froggy's class will fall into this slot. Then we come home, walk the dog, make dinner and do our evening chores  and chill until dinnertime.  After dinner, we take the dog for a walk and Froggy gets...

Ever since Froggy was very little she has been plagued with nightmares semi-regularly. Yet it took her a long time before she was able to talk about them at all. Even on nights when she woke up screaming in terror, the next morning when asked she would say she had "good sleeps and good dreams" Until recently. Not long ago, Froggy told me she had a bad dream. The next night she did not want to go to sleep because she was going to have bad dreams. Thus started a new bedtime stall and one of my most favorite moments of the day. I suck all her dreams out (because the vacuum cannot sort but takes everything). Then she has no dreams. And I feed her good dreams, fun memories or good things to look forward to or the like. I love lying with her for these moments and sharing these thoughts. Then she rolls over I wish her "Lilah Tov Good Sleeps and Good Dreams." And the best part of all is it works. She has been having almost no nightmares and she has even started addi...

One of my goals for in our mid-year course correction was to establish some routine, not a schedule mind you but a routine, a predictable rhythm. I wanted one for each day and one for the week. At this point I have a daily routine that seems to be working reasonable well. Here is what it looks like. I get up usually around 6am. This is my time for a cup of coffee and whatever I need to do. I do my class work, my computer work and whatever else I need. By 7am I start breakfast and getting ready for the day.I try to be dressed and have everything ready for the day including lunches packed before Froggy gets up. Froggy wakes up. We do Modeh Ani then get cleaned up and dressed. We do our own abbreviated form of Shacarit. Each month I will add more prayers to it as we learn them. After Shacarit is breakfast and school. Neither Froggy nor I are big fans of breakfast so it is the school stuff that makes being at the table worthwhile for her and breakfast happens to get eaten while w...