Routines

It’s pouring down rain this morning. Got the 2 little boys off to school in a timely manner without too much chaos. I had a late night, hence a late start this morning. I’m working on doing better on that end. But the days are just long sometimes, I can’t change that.

I am trying to make the morning routine better for all of us. Checklists work, for awhile. But then everyone becomes bored of them. I guess I have to try to change up the routine once in awhile. It takes so long to get them into a routine, I hate to lose that.

It takes me so long to get into a routine. There’s this whole process I have to go through, it seems.
1. First I have to realize that there’s a problem caused by a lack of structure or routine. That could take me anywhere from days to weeks to months. Hopefully only days or weeks.
2. Then I have to “chill”. You know, just decompress a bit, shake off the old routine, or shake myself out of the no routine, as it were!
3. Then I have to go through a stage of doing nothing to the point where it aggravates me that I am doing nothing about the lack of structure.
4. After that I spend a period of time analyzing the situation and the basic rhythms that I see.
5. Then of course, I make a list or a chart of some sort. This could take days as I play around with perfecting the chart on the computer. 
6. Implement the routine and any incentives.
7. Perfect the routine until all is peaceful and Momma is happy again. For awhile. Until those involved become bored, or the school year ends, or the summer ends, or the kids grow up, or whatever.

Then get into bad routine again, which is no routine. Become aggravated again. Repeat process when necessary. See I have a routine for getting into a routine. Now isn’t that clever?