Q & A: Young mom of many kids struggling with doing it all

Hi Zsuzsanna,

Could you please please please include in your homeschooling series how you schedule other things into your day? Like cooking and cleaning? What are your priorities? How do actually do all this? What kind of meals do you make or when in the day do you cook? 

I am pregnant with my fifth and will have five under five next year. I have started homeschooling and am overwhelmed.

Right now I have two children in nappies that need changing, one has spilled milk on their church clothes, breakfast plates are everywhere (they are eating as I type this), crumbs are everywhere, the dishwasher is unstacked, lunch hasn't been organised (God knows what we're eating after morning service, that's if I even get there since their church clothes need changing again), laundry hasn't been put away. My floors are grimy, the toilet needs cleaning etc.

My kindy student is getting an education alright, but at the expense of other things...e.g. meals made from scratch, porridge for dinner etc

The only reason why I'm online right now is so I can type this comment, and see if anyone else out there is struggling too.

If you have addressed this could you please provide a link?

Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
Emmy

Dear Emmy,

I really feel for you as you go through this difficult season. When my oldest was five, I only had three kids, and that was plenty hard.

 My words of advice are:

- Don't do it all. Many things have to be neglected, the tricky part is knowing what to neglect. I read in a book that there are four categories of things competing for our attention: 

urgent and important, 

urgent but not important, 

not urgent but important, 

not urgent and not important. 

We are all great at tending to the urgent and important (like  a diaper blowout), but many of us tend to respond to urgent but unimportant (like a social phone call) before tending to the not urgent but important (like brushing your children's teeth). By doing so, the non-urgent but important issues pretty soon become urgent and important, but we could save ourselves a lot of time and trouble by addressing them before they become urgent. Always choose non-urgent but important over urgent but non-important. Does that make sense? Also, some chores are better neglected than others, because they don't compound while undone. For example, a floor that hasn't been mopped for two weeks still takes just as long to mop as if you did it every day. Laundry neglected for two weeks - not so much! Neglect the forgiving chores first.

- Simplify your life as much as you can. To simplify meal planning and cooking, make a list of the most common meals your family likes, and stick it to the fridge for when you are out of ideas. Have a list of simple meals that can be thrown together with staples you always keep on hand. Planning like this requires an initial investment of time, but it will pay off in the future (falling into the important but not urgent category). Use a slow cooker that you can get going in the morning and have dinner ready at night, freeing up your afternoon for errands or other outings. Cook a double batch for dinner and use the leftovers for lunch the next day (I have been doing this for years). Nothing wrong with simple meals. Porridge is fine for dinner for the kids, and if your husband minds you could just make a big meal a couple of times per week and serve that to him at dinnertime over several days. Have paper dishes and cups on hand for busy days, and use them. Other ways to simplify are to radically pare down the kids' toys (less messes and helps them be more creative with what they have), cut out outside obligations/voluteering, use the easiest possible curriculum that requires the least input from you, etc. At this stage of homeschooling, you could really just get by with teaching your oldest to read while sitting on the sofa feeding the baby, reading lots of books with him, involving him in the housework/cooking/childcare, and letting him observe and explore the natural world in the yard or a park. Basically, go into survival mode and become a minimalist. It is very freeing, and you'll find that you will get more done because you are not demotivated before your day even starts.

- Enlist the help of others. Maybe there is a single or childless lady in your church or social circle who would love to come over and help out (for free, but she'd gain much experience). Maybe an older lady might enjoy helping you with laundry or cleaning every week. Maybe your husband or a grandparent can make a set time each week when they take all the kids off your hands - my husband does this every Tuesday morning and it makes such a huge difference! Don't be shy about asking others for help. If your finances allow, you could hire someone to come and clean, but I realize this is not an option for most of us.

- Get a head start. Whenever possible, get up before your family does, get dressed, read your Bible, and plan the day ahead. Ever minute you can get on your own without interruptions is worth 10 minutes later in your day.  Life goes through stages and this is not always possible, especially when pregnant, but this is a great sanity saver when you can take advantage of it.

- Have a pattern for your day. I shy away from minute-by-minute schedules because they can quickly lead to frustration when something unexpected happens and you get behind. I have certain anchor points in my day, such as ready for the day by 9 a.m., lunch around noon and naps by 1 p.m., dinner at 5:30 and bed by 7 to 9 (depending on the ages). I have certain days set aside for errands and outings. but I generally avoid shopping after nap time or on the weekends because stores are busy and tempers run high, making everything take longer. To read my previous posts on scheduling, please click here.

- Enforce naps and bed times. Naps are moms' link to sanity. By having these times to count on and yes, look forward to, you will make it through the stickiest moments in your day. In our house, all kids age 5 and under take a midday nap. I learned this from my Grandma who raised six kids, and my mom who had five. Sure, there are those kids who will fight sleep, but remember, sleep begets sleep. And while you cannot force someone to fall asleep, they can be made to lie still, close their eyes, and not get up - which is just as good as sleep itself, and often makes them fall asleep in the process. The earlier they go to bed, the later they wake up the next day, no joke. If you have really early sunrises in the summer, hang a blanket over their window to block the light at 5 a.m. Never wake a sleeping child unless a foreign army is marching toward you, your house is about to be struck by a hurricane, or you are in some other deadly peril.

- Breastfeed. I say this with some reservations, as I certainly don't want to make anyone feel bad who cannot nurse their child, nor am I implying that your kids are not a blessing. My point is that by exclusively breastfeeding your children without a schedule and without stuffing them under a hot blanket, your hormones would prevent you from becoming pregnant so close together, which of course makes your workload a lot harder and is a major drain on your body.  On the flip side, remember that when your kids get old enough to really help out around the house, you will go from no help to having a whole team of helpers virtually overnight :)

- Take care of yourself and your marriage. I realize this can be hard to accomplish. Much of your down time will have to happen while you do other things, such as reading while feeding the baby, running errands without kids, browsing FB after the kids are in bed while you make breakfast for the next day, and such like. If everything hits the fan at once, secure the kids in a safe spot where they cannot hurt themselves or each other, and do what you need to do. Don't hold off on using the bathroom, brushing your teeth, taking your vitamins, or doing some other little thing that doesn't take long but will nag away at you subconsciously if neglected. Invest time and effort in your marriage, and realize the best gift you can give your children is happily married parents.

- Be realistic. This is just a phase. They are just kids. This too shall pass. Try to see the humor in things. Realize messes matter little in the scope of things, but how you react to obstacles will shape your little people for a lifetime. Do your best and leave God to take care of the rest.


Readers, if you have more advice, please share it in the comments below.

Template of my weekly to-do list

For those who might benefit from it, I wanted to share my system for staying on top of things from week to week (or at least trying my hardest to). This current system has been in use for several years now, though it has evolved during that time as my needs changed.

The basic framework for my to-do list is the same each week. Rather than writing down everything by hand, I made up a blank template, to fill in each week as necessary. Since I typically finish up loose ends and plan the week ahead on Sundays, my schedule runs Monday - Sunday.

Today, I am sharing that basic template. You should be able to download the file to your own computer, and edit it in Microsoft Word to suit your own needs, if you wish. You can find the template here.

This system works very well for me, because errands or meals that didn't get done one week, get transferred to next, and I am reminded of them as I do so. The list is small enough to keep on my counter during the day, and in my purse while out and about. 

I know you are curious to take a peek at this list in action, right? Here is this week's list. And yes, the paper was fresh and crisp just yesterday, but has seen much use already in the last 24 hours, and it shows. Which, by the way, is the reason why I use new sheets each week, rather than a notebook or planner - they would never stand up to extended use. Not to mention they are too bulky to double as shopping lists etc.

How's that for a candid peek at my life?? Some comments:

- The meal plan is not yet fully filled in, because I add to it throughout the week as I see what needs to be  used or what I feel like making. 

- The to-do and shopping lists are looking a little overwhelming already this week, but I often combine a lot of errands into one day, or stop at just one of those stores while already out and about. Or ask my husband to take a store off my hands, like tomorrow when I will ask him to stop at TJ's after he takes the kids to P.E.

- For my shopping list, if an item is sold at multiple stores, I add it to each of those lists, and buy it at whichever one I go to first. Quick shout-out to Costco: our store just started carrying organic beef kielbasa. Oh joy!!! And while we are on the subject, Whole Foods just started selling organic ground pork for $7/lb. Finding organic pork is exciting in and of itself, but that is a very good price to boot. 

- On the "things going on this week," I do not list stuff we do weekly, like the kids' P.E. and piano lessons - just extracurricular stuff that I need to be reminded of. I use this in conjunction with Google calendar, where I keep track of every single event for my husband, myself, and the kids.

Some of you may find your name on my list - you know who you are! :)

Here is the link to the template one more time. 

Running a family and helping our husbands is a huge job. Keeping all the plates spinning can become overwhelming, but this helps me, and I hope it helps you, too. 

Okay, off to work down that list now!

Large Family Tip - Matching Socks

All of us are probably too familiar with the never-ending chore known as "laundry." In our house, we tackle "Mount Foldmore" somewhat like this:

1. We have hampers for dirty laundry in strategic spots around the house, that get emptied and sorted at least daily into the hampers in the laundry room. (Solomon or Isaac can sort, all the younger kids make sure dirty laundry gets put in hampers.)

2. In the laundry room, as soon as one washer load is ready to be run, we run it. (Solomon or Isaac)

3. Once the laundry is washed and dried, it gets sorted into baskets of clean "foldables", "hangables", and "socks". (John or Miriam)

4. John and younger fold and put away all the "foldables". Isaac and Solomon hang up and put away all the "hangables". This happens almost daily. With an average of three loads a day, that really is the longest we can go, or our clean hampers will start piling high. Once a week on Saturdays, I try to get every last piece of laundry washed and put away, as a sort of "reset" button. 

All this is done in the office (next to our laundry room), and taken to each room once everything is hung/folded. While they work, the kids enjoy listening to audio books, or occasionally watching something educational on the computer if there is a lot of work to do.

Only 13 years into marriage, thanks to having lots of little helpers, I can say we have the laundry monster mostly tamed. (Of course now that I said this, some major mess will happen and put me behind, like kids throwing up all over their bedding.) But, the one aspect that has continued to be a major thorn in my side is SOCKS. Every mother would agree, I know!!!! 

Let's do some math. We have 9 people that each wear socks, every day. 9 pairs per day, or 18 socks. In a week, that makes for 126 socks. But that would be in a perfect world. In reality, most of my kids go through TWO pairs of socks each per day, either because they take off the first pair and lose it, get it dirty, decide they need to change styles in the afternoon, etc. Realistically, we go through about 15 pairs of socks per day, or 210 individual socks per week. 

That's over 200 socks that have to make it from the kids' feet, to the hampers, through the washer and dryer, into the sock basket, and then be paired up. The possibilities of what can go wrong are endless. For every 10 pairs we wear, we probably get 5 out after the wash, and the rest are "singles" for a season until we clean out under beds, between the washer and dryer, in shoe cubbies, etc. Frustrating? YES! For every dozen socks we own, we probably average two complete pairs.

I have tried to come up with different ways of keeping socks together during the laundering process, which would eliminate the need to try and find pairs. For a while, we tried safety pins. It worked ok, but there were several problems: my younger kids needed help with them, the bag of pins would get left out and spilled, open pins would be left lying around, the pins corroded in the wash over time, it was hard to get everyone in a habit of "pinning" their socks, etc.

Then, some months back, I found a "basting gun" at Jo-Anns in the quilting section. It is a very simple device, similar to a price gun for affixing price tags. This seemed like a better, easier, quicker, and more interesting way of pinning socks with their mate before throwing them in the laundry. Initially, the kids were so excited they were motivated to pin their own socks, as soon as they came off their feet. 

When the excitement wore off, I told everyone to fold their dirty socks together before throwing them in the dirty hamper. While they can't go through the wash folded, it does make it easier, because at least the socks can still be kept together in an instant, no tools required. Then, when the hampers get emptied and sorted into the laundry room hampers each night, whoever is doing the sorting will unfold the socks, baste them together, and then put them in whatever dirty hamper they belong in. 

Once the socks some out of the wash, we toss them, still connected, into the "single socks" hamper. When one of us sits down on Saturday to match socks, it's as easy as picking connected pairs out of the basket, removing the little plastic (easy enough to be done by hand), folding the socks into a pair, and tossing them into the "paired socks" hamper, ready to be sorted into each child's sock drawer. 

This system is not foolproof - socks still disappear because our little kids have a tendency to leave their laundry wherever they happen to pull it off. BUT it has been a MAJOR improvement in conquering the sock matching challenge. Several months into it, my older boys (who do the laundry sorting) still think it's fun to use the basting gun, which is permanently stored in the laundry room. 

Some tips for using the basting gun:

- I would NOT recommend this for basting a quilt. But it does great with socks!

- I highly recommend using a 50% off coupon if you are going to buy one. 

- Keep it out of the reach of little kids. The tip is very pointy and sharp.

- It's a little tricky to learn how to "baste" together two items on the first try, every time. But if you follow the instructions and make sure the layers of fabric are flush against the gun, it works like a charm.

- When removing the plastic "pins", work over a small trash can so you don't end up with little red plastic pieces everywhere. 

- Socks seem to fare better when they are pinned in such a way that ends of the pin are on the outside of the fabric, rather than the inside (where they are more likely to get caught on the elastic). 

How do YOU tackle the laundry / sock monster? 

The letdown post, plus a kitchen tip

For those of you who were excited about a special giveaway to celebrate this here 700th blog post of mine, I am sorry. My 1-year menu plan is not quite finished, and short of not blogging again until it is done, I decided to do the giveaway next month for my 4-year blogging anniversary, which should give me enough time to finish up.

One-year menu plan

Wow, this has been some project! 

Here is the menu for the month of July. Click on the picture to see it large enough to read. (This is a screen shot of the document I made in MS Word)

A goodly heritage

A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. - Proverbs 13:22 

The Bible speaks often about leaving an inheritance for our children - not necessarily as a command, just as prudent advice. Applying this principle to material things, it is easy to see how helpful it would be to have the parent generation jump-starting their children's generation with sound financial teaching and the means for them to start their own families with tangible goods rather than debt. This second generation will then, in turn, be able to help the third generation so much more, and so on. I am not talking about amassing and hording money. Rather, I was thinking along the lines of how in the old days, families would pass part of their land on to each of their children, and help them build a house/farm on it, or how the family business would be passed down from father to son for generation after generation. 

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. - Psalm 16:6

Regardless of your financial standing, this same principle can be applied to the spiritual realm, which is also infinitely more important than the physical/material. 

Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage for ever: for they are the rejoicing of my heart.  - Psalm 119:111 

When we think about the importance of passing on to our children a heritage of godliness, living a life that strives to be in line with Bible principles becomes a much more urgent responsibility. There are more areas than I can list here, but I will give a few examples:

• Marriage: What are you passing on to the next generation about marriage? I don't mean having a perfect marriage, because nobody has one since we are all married to, and are ourselves, imperfect people. I am referring to just how you deal with these imperfect unions that God says are to last a lifetime. If you throw in the towel and get divorced, do you realize that you are making it so much more likely that your own children will one day grow up and have one dysfunctional relationship after the other? If, however, you ride out the bumps (great and small) in front of your children, they will learn that marriage truly is "for better, for worse, till death do us part", and they may themselves are likely to make a more prudent choice of spouse than the parent generation did. Few of us were afforded a chance to see such commitment in our parents' lives ourselves, but the buck needs to stop somewhere, so it might as well be with us. If you look around families that you know, you may notice that couples who stay married usually have children who themselves are even more happily married.

• Birth control: Life in an ever-growing family is very different from a "statist" family, regardless of the total number of children. Growing and stretching to uncomfortable new levels physically, mentally, and spiritually is a MUST if the non-birth control family is supposed to stay sane and maybe even succeed. There is no such thing as permanently "finding a groove" and growing comfortable, because just when we do, a monkey wrench in the form of an adorable but very needy baby is thrown into the mix, and suddenly we're back to square one. I always think it's funny how I think "Wow, this is so much work, I can hardly handle this!" only to one baby later think "Wow, my life was SO easy back then!" It's all perspective, and allowing God to control family size will really expand your perspective beyond what you ever thought possible or maybe even wanted to experience. If I were to stop and think about how many more children I might be having in my life time - children that haven't even been born yet, and that need to be helped from infancy to adulthood, it can really be an overwhelming thought. As much growing as I still have to do in so many areas of being a mother, I can at least see how I have grown in certain areas already that I would not have grown in had it not been for the ever-growing number of precious children. Children are a blessing, and God uses having them to teach us as much as we teach them. Even just growing up in relatively "large" family with 5 kids helped me so much to have a jump-start on raising my own children. I hope that our sons are learning what it means to provide for a large family, and that our daughters are learning how to sustain it from the inside. If they know everything we parents know at the point when they are getting married, they will have a 20+ year lead on what we knew when we were in their situation as newlyweds. THAT is the kind of heritage that we all should be fortunate to have.

• Homeschooling: Much along the lines of the last point. Again, this will pick up momentum as one generation passes the torch to another, because children whose parents make their education their personal responsibility are so much smarter and well educated (haters, hold your comments - it's a fact.) I wish I had known even one tenth of what our children know when I was their age, or have their mental agility. The human mind is absolutely amazing, especially when it is cultivated rather than lulled and sedated.

• Homemaking: Being a homemaker, I am ever aware of trying to pass everything I know on to our children, especially the girls (although if I succeed at teaching all of our boys to put their laundry in the hamper and their shoes in their cubbies I think my future daughters-in-law will love me to pieces). All of our children learn to cook and clean, because I firmly believe that learning ANY productive skill is worthwhile regardless of gender. As they get older, I truly hope and even pray that our sons will be taught my husband's line of work by him, so they can work in the family business as young adults even if they later choose a different line of work. It will give them an edge not only financially (a family business can employ their children at younger ages than outside businesses are allowed to hire them), but also professionally. My husband learned like that from his own dad, and I know it has helped him in his job many times. If our daughters leave home knowing all the tricks and shortcuts that it took me years and decades to figure out, they will themselves be able to build on this foundation and reach heights I would never be able to reach myself. The Bible calls children arrows, and it is so true, because we have the opportunity to shoot them beyond what we ourselves could accomplish.

• Health: Not so much a direct aspect of "godliness", but since "all that a man hath will he give for his life" (Job 2:4) , this point still has great bearing on our everyday lives. Maybe laughable to those who frequent the Golden Arches regularly, this is actually very important to us. I wish I myself had not been formula-fed, vaccinated, and had my health permanently interfered with on so many levels. In some ways, trying to navigate through the maze of mis- and disinformation out there is like trying to reinvent the wheel. I sure would have loved to be taught all the traditional wisdom that used to be passed down from mothers to daughters about how to be (and stay) healthy, naturally, or to not fear pregnancy and childbirth as a deadly disease, or how to use herbs for healing, just to name a few examples. While I am starting from square one, our own children won't have to. In a world where in one century we have gone from the majority of people dying of old age to 1 out of two men and 1 in three women suffering cancer in their lifetime, in addition to a whole host of other entirely preventable modern illnesses, I would love for our children to be able to break out of this mold and not have to struggle with poor health their entire lives.

There, I have just run through all my favorite "hobby horses", but you can probably think of many more and better examples yourself. I hope this post encouraged you to look beyond your own generation and consider the benefits that we can bestow on those who come after us. The next time your spouse is acting unreasonable, or you get questioned at the store as to when you are going to stop having children, or people hate you for homeschooling because it pricks their own conscience, or you stay up late researching a new topic you are trying to learn about, or you get challenged for not injecting your child with toxic substances and aborted fetal tissue in the name of Franken-health - just think of it as laying up, little by little, a better heritage for your own children.

For thou, O God, hast heard my vows: thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name. - Psalm 61:5 

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. - Isaiah 58:12