Domesticity

I've been trying a new system for structuring my day. Everybody needs a kazillion different things from me and it gets pretty confusing. It's not so much that there's too much to do, as that all the demands on my time come in such a haphazard fashion, and it's tough to stay focused.

Anyway, everybody takes turns now. Well, they don't take turns asking for stuff, but I take turns listening to them.

I set the kitchen timer for 15 min., and for those fifteen minutes, I'm entirely focused on the kids. Diapers and sippy cups and stories and block towers. They always need laundry, too, and if they're happily occupying themselves, I'll throw in a load... but for those fifteen minutes, they can't possibly get in the way, because they're the highest priority.

Then the buzzer goes off, and it's Andy's turn for fifteen minutes. Dishes and mopping and bills and menu-planning. Of course I'll deal with any urgent crisis with the kids--after all, Andy want's his kids taken care of--but if it can wait, it will wait. Because once the buzzer goes oof, the next 15 minutes are theirs again.

And then it's MY fifteen minutes. And I'd tell you what I do with my fifteen minutes... except that the buzzer just went off.