My happy spot in a day is when I am not doing any work. I am not cleaning or feeding anyone. I am on the floor playing with my kids (or outside hanging out with them). There is no reason I shouldn't make time for this every day at least once. So I came up with a solution.
I wrote down on a sheet of paper all the 15-20 minute activities I could think of. Bubbles, play-doh, dance party, candyland, painting, chase, tag, etc. I cut them out into slips of paper and put them into a box with a lid. We will do one of these things (at least) daily. Either I choose at random or Zane picks one out of the box. I have about 30 activities in there and am aware of its presence in my kitchen each morning, which was the point of the plan. Check.
I also created a posterboard calender just for Zane. He has been rather confused about the new traveling schedule his father has started. We put big yellow stars on the days Mike will be home and also filled in his activites on the other days (preschool, church, play dates, etc). It will be helpful for him to learn yesterday was not 'last year' and keep me on track with talking about communicating our schedule often.
My next move is a quick and dirty list of each kids' developmental targets for this stage of their lives and post them in a place I can view each day so I can make more time available to focus on them. I have a house to pack up and I don't want them to get lost in the mix of change this summer. Although I like to post about how awesome I think I am, this is more in the spirit of keeping myself accountable for all the things I am responsible for and pushing the most important to the top of the list.
