Tagesplan

Today Erich and I put together our summer “Tagesplan,” or daily schedule.  This is my effort to create structure in our home and feel like I have some sort of handle of what’s going on here.  After I had my second son last June, it felt like it took quite a while to feel like I could balance both kids and NOT FEEL CRAZY.  Ha!  Who am I kidding?!  He’ll be one this Friday and I’m still trying to do that!  Now I wouldn’t call myself “efficient” or “organized” or “crafty” but I was able to come up with this, and so far it’s worked pretty well. 

Artwork done *mostly* by Erich...

In case anyone is wondering what we do all day, here is what it says:

Morning

1: Breakfast

2: Brush teeth, get dressed

3: Run with Jaeger

4: Mathias sleeps, Mama showers, Erich plays on his Leapster (I know an hour is long, but he’ll eventually break out the toys.  He’s excited about the idea of Leapster time for now.)

Midday

1: School with Mama*

2: (M/Th) shopping, (Tu) museum, (W) library, (F) playgroup

3: Lunch

4: Mathias sleeps, Mama studies, Erich plays quietly

Afternoon

1: Erich watches a German movie, Mama studies

2: Snack, chores**

3: Swimming

4: Baths

Evening

1: Ride bike, play outside

2: Dinner

3: Mathias goes to bed

4: Erich goes to bed

Half way there! Wooah-ooh! Livin' on a prayer!

*Now that school is out we’re still going to do school time together for an hour during the baby’s nap.  I’m using the German sister site of kidssoup.com.  You have to pay for access to their print-outs but it’s super cute and creative and GERMAN so it's worth it to me.

** We just started this, after my super sweet husband got me an iPad and Erich decided it was for him.  It’s basically an incentive program.  He gets a sticker for each chore.  Fill up the chart (it takes 4-5 days) and play on the iPad.  You’ve never seen a 4 year old more motivated to put away silverware. 

We’ve had charts like this for a few months now.  Erich loves it, I love it.  There is less whining (I wish I had an Easy button to get rid of that entirely) and having a daily plan to refer to makes being home with kids much less suffocating. He loves knowing what is going to happen next and exactly what has to happen before he is allowed to do what HE wants to do.  Also, without something for him to refer to it’s hard to get him to go along with my plans.  Erich is his father’s son and isn’t about to believe you know what you’re talking about unless you can back it up.  Well this here, this is my wingman!  Whenever I get a meltdown about going to the store, the Tagesplan is all I need to point to.  “See here, buddy, Mondays and Thursdays 11-1, it’s shopping time!  It absolutely MUST happen or we’ll never get to that cartoon portion of the day.  We’ll be stuck in limbo forever!  The universe will implode!!!”  The Tagesplan has my back, the Tagesplan does not lie.  The Tagesplan will bring peace into my world once again.  All hail, the great and holy Tagesplan!