It is incredibly true that time flies when you are having fun! We are now half way through 2009 and almost half way through the first year of our new baby’s life (he is 5 months already!). So it is time to review what I have been doing and what I want to do. This month, I have done a quick monthly review and then will post close after my half yearly review looking at the bigger picture with our family goals for the year.

Review of Key Tasks For June

1. Review My Priorities.

I would have to say that this is still a work in progress. I still am trying to squeeze too much in to the available time I have, so need to become more self disciplined about the extra activities that I take on board.

2. Make it to the gym 3 times a week.

Achieved for June. I already had 2 set sessions that I would go to and had one floating. I found that the floating session never happened. That session is now either Tue morning or Tue evening depending on the needs of the baby.

3. Audit and restock the pantry.

Completed. (Will probably need to be restocked again after school holidays though!)

4. Visit the Art Gallery with the children.

We did finally go and see the John Brack exhibition (I wrote about it here if you are interested.)

Key Tasks For July

1. School Craft Group

I have recently become responsible for co-ordinating the school craft school for the end of the year and next year’s school fair. I am not a particularly good crafter. (My very dear friend Cath at mobblegobble is and she helps me a lot on my personal crafty stuff.) But this role is more about co-ordination and organisation, which I am pretty comfortable with !

At my children’s school there is an established group of very clever crafters, who will be leaving the school in the next year or two. My aim is to develop the skills of people like myself by co-ordinating and running some “MasterCrafter” sessions, so they can teach us their stuff! (My husband has delicately pointed out to me, that this new task is in direct opposition to trying to slow things down and keep my priorities balanced - I do struggle with this.)

2. Use the massage voucher that I have.

This was a lovely Christmas gift from my in-laws and it will expire soon if I do not use it.

3. Begin my Christmas in July preparations.

Last year in July I began doing some preliminary planning for Christmas. The key task was making homemade gifts. The end of the year is an incredibly busy time for us - two birthdays, end of school, Christmas functions etc, so it was fantastic when December rolled around last year and I had a stock pile of goodies already made. This July I intend to do the same.

4. Rest and have fun in the school holidays.

I am one of those mums that love school holidays. I love the more leisurely pace of the mornings, love that I don’t have to continually wake the baby to do school pick ups and that I don’t have to run around the suburbs 4 out of 5 afternoons for after school activities. So I am looking forward to resting a bit more and having some fun with the kids

Technorati Tags: family budget, goals, review

• Monthly Review - June
• Monthly Review May
• Monthly Review July/August
• Monthly Review September

Back in January I detailed what our Family’s Goals for 2009 would be. This is the first year that I have done something like this. I have found it too be incredibly helpful to have these goals to look back and assist me in working out what I need to be doing.

June Review - Family’s Goals for 2009

1. Smooth transition adding our newest family member.

This actually went better than I could have imagined. Not only does the baby bring me the most amazing joy and satisfaction, but he brings immense happiness to his siblings. There are however moments when there are extreme acts of neediness from the 3 year old, for example wanting me to pick him up and carry him, when he can quite clearly see that I am carrying the baby, but they are infrequent and he is happy just to be sitting right next (read almost on top of) me when I am breastfeeding him.


2. Ensure Possum’s first school year is a positive experience.

Possum loves school and in the last few weeks of term 2, you could really see a learning explosion for her. In the last few weeks of term 2 you could also see extreme tiredness in the little one as well. The second last Friday of term, she fell asleep on her bed at 5pm and slept through until 7am the next morning.

I will need to continue to work on keeping her well rested on week ends, so that she has the energy to learn and enjoy herself at school. I also need to continue supporting her early literacy and numeracy achievements at school with informal, fun reinforcement at home.


3. Complete my project.

At this stage, I think I will struggle to have it completed by the end of the year. Mr I and I are currently looking at him taking small bursts of leave and being the primary carer during the day, so I can spend more extended hours on the project.

4. Encourage further (age appropriate) independence in my children.

This has been going along quite well. I have been posting the key achievements in increasing the kids independence through out the year. The 3 year old however is going through a stage where having mastered the task of dressing himself, he no longer cares to do it. Experience with my other kids has shown that this phase does pass, but we will keep working with him on it.

Some of the things that I would like to work on over the second half of the year are:

• Possum to learn to tie bows.
• Thinker to learn a new meal.
• Little Rascal to learn to stack and unstack the dishwasher.
• Babaganouski to learn to set the table.
5. Maintain my health and fitness.

I have started gradually building up the intensity of the exercise that I am doing. My key issue is to cut out a lot of the junk that I am eating. My main down fall is chocolate and also that when I am tired, I often confuse this with being hungry and eat instead of sleep (because sleep isn’t always possible!).

6. Support Mr I’s chosen sporting events, so he can maintain his health and fitness.

Mr I is still carrying an injury from last year’s football season, so he has been limited in what sporting endeavours he can do. Cycling is the main thing at the moment - unfortunately for me this is actually quite time consuming! An 80km bike ride does take up quite a few hours on a Sunday morning, but it is an enjoyable outlet for him.


7. See at least one live music event a quarter.

I have seen no live music this year yet. Really need to work on this one as I love going to a gig.

8. Adhere to the family budget.

First quarter of 2009 was balanced, but the second quarter was in deficit. I will need to be more strategic with my expenditure in the next quarter.

9. Achieve a balance of fun and learning activities for the children.

Overall I would say this is going along okay. I do wish that I was spending more time individually with each child though. I need to remind self though that this does happen when you have a new baby. I am running on less sleep and breast feeding on demand which does alter your ability to do as much as you would like with each child in a one on one format.

10. To grow this blog to become a greater resource for families.

I haven’t executed any of the ideas I had around this task. I would love to renovate the blog and reformat it to be more user friendly, but the task above takes priority and I really just don’t have the time.

To summarise, I have probably achieved about 75% of what I aimed to at this point in the year. I think the reason for non achievement of goals lies in the fact that I was too ambitious with what I set for myself. In a year which I have a new born baby, I probably underestimated the time factor this would take up. As I want to enjoy my beautiful little boy and all the children) I am going to make the following changes to the family goals for 2009:

• Complete my project, will now become 75% completion of the project.
• To grow this blog to become a greater resource for families, will now become top priority for 2010.

Did you set yourself goals for 2009? How are you tracking on them? Like me have you needed to make changes to your goals?

Technorati Tags: family budget, family goals, family review

• Planning Family Goals For The New Year
• Monthly Review - June
• Monthly Review September
• Monthly Review - March

This post is part of a series of activities that can help increase your child’s independence. This activity was for my child who is 10 years old, as was the below post:

• Cooking Dinner

Other activities which are aimed at younger children (aged 2 - 6) can be found below:

• Juicing oranges
• Cutting Food
• Grating Food
• Making Their Own Lunch

If you have been reading the blog for a while, you may remember when Thinker turned 10 years old last year, he was then allowed to walk home from school on his own. Thinker has chosen to continue doing this everyday since (with one or two exceptions when it was pouring with rain), even though either myself or our lovely neighbour is at school at the end of the day to pick up the other kids.

Thinker and I had talked about what other things that he would like to do now that he is getting older. One of the things that we agreed on (not all were agreed on by both sides) was catching a train into the city (Melbourne) by himself.

To put this in perspective, we live about 13kms east of Melbourne CBD. We used to live inner city and catch the train frequently, but even in the burbs now, we still catch the train every couple of months and head into the city. The train station in our suburb and at the station at Flinders Street are familiar to Thinker.

So a couple of weeks ago, we organised for Thinker to:

• Walk to our local train station.
• Purchase his train ticket.
• Catch designated train to Flinders Street Station.
• Walk from Flinders Street Station to his dad’s work (other side of city).
• Meet his dad, to have dinner.
• Come home with dad.

Before he went, we made sure the following happened:

• He had a map, with directions drawn on.
• He had calculated what time train he needed to catch to meet his dad at 5pm.
• He had a mobile phone, with relevant contact numbers.
• He had coins for ticket and emergencies.
• He was confident and happy to make the trip.

Thinker was very excited about making the trip. At one point on the day of the trip Thinker came up and told me it was only 102 minutes until he had to leave! I was excited for him, but to be honest also very nervous. I know he is capable and responsible, but letting go and new “firsts” like this is always a nervous time for me.

When the time came for him to leave, I kept calm and didn’t make a huge fuss, when I really felt like hugging and squeezing him tight. He set off happily and confidently and
it was just left for me to wait now.

I had made his dad promise to ring me as soon as he made it to his work. Within about an hour from leaving, Thinker rang to tell me that he was with dad! I felt relieved and happy for him. I could hear that Thinker was incredibly proud of himself and had a great sense of achievement.

Being able to catch the train into the city to meet his dad, is a great achievement. He will now be able to do this to meet his dad and go and see football games, cricket etc. In about 18 months Thinker will be catching trains to school, in situations where they will be large groups of boys. Knowing how to travel safely and sensibly on public transport is an important skill for him to have.

I have shared this story with other parents, the majority of which have been supportive of what we have done. There have been some though, who think that he was too young to do this by himself. Mr I and I were comfortable that the timing was right for him to do this. Every child and every family is different, so this may not be an activity for every 10 year old, but it certainly was a successful one for our 10 year old.

Technorati Tags: children, parenting, train

• Planning For Life Learning
• 10 Children’s Activities In Melbourne For February
• Planning To Let Go, One Step At A Time.
• Children Walking To School

I have written before on my view on TV (less is best!) so I won’t bore you with all the reasons why I think TV needs to be limited for kids. If you are interested though, you can read the following:

• Study: TV May Inhibit Babies’ Language Development
• TV And Kids Under Age 3
• How TV Affects Your Child

To be honest I would like to think that we could do without a TV at all in our house, but there are times when I put the TV and the kids quieten down for half an hour or so, and I am very grateful for the quiet that it brings.

We have developed a roster system in our house to manage the competing needs of the children. Time on the computer, playing the Wii or watching the TV are treated equally as they are all sedentary activities.

The table above shows the roster that we currently have in operation. The child whose name (or in this example age) appears next to the day is allowed to choose which activity they want to do - Wii, computer or TV. If they choose TV they are also allowed to choose the program which they want to watch (within family guidelines).

The remaining children then need to agree how to use the available technology. Due to the spread of ages, it can sometimes be quite challenging for them to find a middle ground. But as their time is ticking away, they usually come to some form of compromise!

The TV roster changes regularly to take into account after school activities and ages of the children.

How do you manage the TV in your house or if you have decided to go without TV, how has that worked for you?

Technorati Tags: children, parenting, tv

• To TV Or Not To TV?
• Selecting TV Programs For The Kids.
• 10 Tips For Organised School Mornings
• The Financial Crisis And The Impact On Children

May Review

It can be quite deflating to have worked flat out all month yet somehow only managed to achieve 2 out the 4 key tasks listed for the month .

1. Create a project plan for my other project.

Completed. I also spent considerable time on this project - to the expense of the other priorities in May.

2. Teach my 10 year old to cook a basic meal.

Completed. Thinker learnt to cook a dinner of Tacos.

3. Go out to dinner with my husband.

Still yet to do this. I won’t even bother putting it on the list for next month. Every weekend is already booked up with 40ths, hen’s nights, etc. At least we will have opportunities to go out together without the kids though.

4. Visit the Art Gallery with the children.

I really want to take the children to see the John Brack exhibition at NGV. I would prefer to take them on a Sunday when the NGV has the ArtCart for kids, but Sundays are being taken up by football from 8.15am until about 2pm at the moment. It is on until August, so hopefully I will find a Sunday before it ends.

Key Tasks For June

1. Review My Priorities.


In my post about coping with a new baby, I wrote about adjusting your standards. It is time for me to that again. Blogging which I love to do and my other project that I am working can take up most of my weekends. I need to reveiw my priorities and the time lines I have set for them.

Even if they are only self imposed time lines, I tend to get quite frustrated when I don’t achieve them. Similarly I feel guilty if I don’t incorporate enough excursions and playtime with the kids. I feel that this is out of balance at the moment, so need to re-examine where I am at.

2. Make it to the gym 3 times a week.


With a little baby and life’s busyness, this has been slipping back to twice a week. I need to make sure that I am still making time to stay fit and healthy.


3. Audit and restock the pantry.


I am starting run out of the items that I don’t use very often, but are very useful (eg cream of tartar, brown sugar, choc chips etc)

4. Visit the Art Gallery with the children.


We have long weekend in June, so this may just be our chance to get there!

Technorati Tags: goals, monthly planning

• Monthly Review April
• Monthly Review June
• Monthly Review September
• Monthly Review July/August

This review actually encompasses the last two months as at the end of March I reviewed the family budget.

Key Tasks for March/April

1. Mr I and myself to go out for dinner (belated wedding anniversary celebration).

Still uncompleted! We have a hectic calendar for June so I will have to make sure we do this in May.

2. Continue posting three times a week on Planning With Kids, keeping one week in advance.

Just managing to keep up with this one and have found some rhythm in blog posting - naturally I have a little blog time management process that I like.

3. Organise the Christening for our new son.

We held the Christening at the end of March which was beautiful. He has two beautiful Godfathers and we were lucky enough to have family and friends celebrate with us back at our house.

4. Complete another bulk menu planning session.

I am now doing monthly menu planning. It is amazing how quickly the weeks turn by, so I have found it to be a more effective use of my time to sit down once a month and bulk plan then.

5. Send out thank you cards for the birth of our son.

Completed. Kate from Lazy Cow Designs turned three photos into an amazing postcard for me. It was such a sweet design and family and friends loved them. If you need any invitations, thank you cards, Christmas Cards, etc I can highly recommend Kate!

Key Tasks for May

1. Create a project plan for my other project.
2. Teach my 10 year old to cook a basic meal.
3. Go out to dinner with my husband.
4. Visit the Art Gallery with the children.

There is literally dozen more things I would like to add to this list, but I am trying to become more realistic about what I can achieve with my time.

What is on your to do list for May?

Technorati Tags: family planning, monthly review

• Monthly Review February
• Some Planned Time For Mum
• Monthly Review - June
• Monthly Review May

Image: Benimoto

We are heading up to Mildura at Easter to spend time with my family. Mildura is 550km north west of Melbourne. We have driven the Calder Hwy to Mildura countless times and each time we find some way of refining or improving our preparation. Here are some things that we have found very helpful:

Create a list.

I find it so much easier to pack it I sit down first and write down what we need. Laine at icklekids has great tips for getting the lists together. While your at ickle kids you should check ou her amazing range of Travel Toys.

Make children’s activity packs.

Activity packs help the children to pass the time on long journeys. I like to make a home made set of print outs set to suit each child. Each child has a print of the Spot the sign/animal/vehicle game. I have attached the word document below.

Spot The Sign Game

The children simply put a stroke near all the things that they see during a defined time period. Initially when I did this I just let it run, but found it runs out of steam if there is no purpose. So now, we agree on a time frame for observing items. We will choose one sheet at a time. Each child nominates what they think will be the most and least popular items that we spot. By setting up the game in this way, we can have a couple of sessions through out the trip and maintain the children’s interest.

I then make use of a number of online children’s sites, to print out more activities for them;

Toddler:

• - Bananas in Pyjamas colouring in pages
• - Thomas the Tank Engine colouring pages

Preschooler:

• Spot the difference activities - as she can’t read, but can recognise numbers, I write a large number of the top of the sheets, so she knows how many differences to find.

  The world bookday site has a number of spot the differences and many other great activities for preschoolers.

School Age:

• Word Searches - I make up my own using this site. I add into the search towns that we will be going through, the children’s names and for this trip words describing Easter.
• Harry Potter Quizzes - Thinker has read all the Harry Potter series and I have just finished reading the first Harry Potter book to Little Rascal, sot hey will enjoy testing their knowledge.
• Brain Teasers and Spot the Differences - A mix of these activities along with the Fascinating Fact Sheets should help get us through the trip.

Hire new audio books from the library for the children.

I collated a list of audio books which are suitable for long car trips, that might be useful if you are looking for some ideas as to what might be interesting for the children.

Baking.

I like to make some home cooked biscuits or slices as a treat for everyone while driving. Food that isn’t too messy or sticky is ideal for the car. Here are some things that we like to make:

• Chocolate Balls
• Lemon Slice
• 100s Of Biscuits
• Anzac Biscuits

Battery Recharge

Recharge the batteries on iPods, cameras, videos and any other devices that you will be taking away with you. It is great to take photos during the journey and it is frustrating if the camera is flat. (Speaking from experience. )

Make Ice.

We place containers of water in the freezer a few days before, to make ice. As we like to take our drinks we need a small cool with ice to keep them cool. I also find that fruit can keeps fresher in this as it stays cold.

What tips do you have to prepare for a long car trip?

Technorati Tags: car trips, family, Planning, road trips

• Planning For The Easter Holiday Car Trip
• 10 Essential Items For The Family Car Trip
• 10 Favourite Children’s Books - Thinker’s Choice
• 10 Online Learning Games For Preschoolers

This time of the month I would usually post a monthly review of my goals that I had set for the month. For March I am doing something slightly different. As March is marks the end of the first quarter of the calendar year, I thought this would be the ideal time. to review how we are tracking against our family budget.

As outlined in Family Budget For The New Year my dear husband has created a spreadsheet for us to track our expenditure. He also helped me modify our personal details to create a template to share. Instructions on how to use the spreadsheet, can be found in the aforementioned post and you can click on the link below to see the budget spreadsheet.

Planning With Kids Family Budget

So far we have not been directly impacted by the Global Financial Crisis and I am happy to say that we have ended the first quarter with a balanced budget .

Balancing a family budget can be quite tricky and it is not something that I always achieve. By tracking discretionary expenditure in this spreadsheet, I have found that I am more likely to stick to budget as I will take the time to consider the budget status, before I make the purchase. (As my husband reads this blog, I should declare that even after checking the budget status, there are times when I go ahead and purchase anyway, especially if it “was on sale”!)

Using a spreadsheet like this does require both parents to enter their expenditure into the family budget. To make this process easier, we have uploaded a copy to Google Docs. The Planning With Kids Family Budget with detailed instructions can be found via the link below:

Google Docs - Planning With Kids Family Budget

How has the first quarter of the calendar year been for you? Has the global financial crisis impacted your family?

Technorati Tags: family budget, finance, review

• Family Budget For The New Year
• Review Christmas Budget (10 Weeks To Go!)
• Christmas Planning In July - Presents
• Half Yearly Review - Family Goals For 2009

Image by laffy4k

At the end of February I wrote some a post on 6 Blog Time Management Tips. To follow on from that, I have listed some ways that I found to best manage my time as a parent:

1. Menu Plan

It is easy to spend considerable time contemplating what to cook and then run multiple times to the supermarket for the required ingredients. Menu planning eliminates this. I actually wrote a post specifically on 10 Reasons Why You Should Menu Plan. If you are looking for tips on how to menu plan, you can check out my menu planning process.

2. Spend Time Teaching The Children Tasks

It can often seem easier to do things yourself, but it the long term this is not going to give you any more time. By spending time teaching children to do simple tasks for themselves, not only will you increase their self confidence as you build their independence, but will eventually free up some time for yourself as you will not have to do this task for them. Starting with small things like tying their own laces, making their beds, making a sandwich are good places to start.

3. Create A System For Managing Paperwork

Paper shuffling and procrastinating over paperwork can suck up a huge amount of time. Set yourself up a process for how you will deal with the incoming paperwork and then stick to it. I have set up a process for managing school paperwork and have found that it saves me time and makes sure I complete the relevant forms on time.

4. Allocate Time For Yourself

I find to be effective with my time, I need to have adequate space and time to recharge my batteries through the week. It is important to plan to have time to yourself as a mum/dad so you can keep yourself well, gain perspective and have time to think.

5. Prepare In Advance

I find this to be particularly important for me at the moment as I have a beautiful new born baby who is yet to have any defined “routine”. We have a rough starting and end point for his day, but in between those points it all really depends on the day! With this in mind, I try to do as much as possible when he is asleep. For example I ensure that I pack the lunches the night before, put washing in the machine and use the delayed start function, cook the dinner during the morning nap etc.

6. Play With The Kids

With a never ending to do list, you can fall in the trap of forgetting the most important part of parenting, having fun with your kids. It is important to plan some time to stop and play. I think such an essential thing to do for many reasons, firstly because it is fun, the children love it and adults don’t play enough - it always makes you feel better. Secondly by spending regular time with them, when you need some time to get jobs done, you can explain this to the children and they are less likely to be disrupting your task, demanding your attention.

7. Have Routines

Not every one is a fan of routines, but I find that they allow children to take greater responsibility for themselves. They know what is expected of them and when and therefore can do more activities autonomously.

8. Keep A To Do List

As much as I love my Mac and technology, one of my favourite tools is the traditional pen and paper to do list. I have a small notebook that I use for this. At the start of each week, I will write myself a list of activities that need completing. I include on this all activities that are known big and small.

The to do list then allows me to be more efficient with my time. I can group activities that can be done together. For example if I need to buy presents for the children’s friends parties, return the library books and buy bread then I will group these tasks. I will make one trip to a shopping strip near the library so I can complete them all in one trip.

9. Delegate / Share Tasks

This tasks is a work in progress for me. As noted in my Thank You post recently, I have been very lucky to have help from great friends and family. Often I get stuck in my ways and see the only option as me having to do it all. This is not the case as I have a very helpful and supportive husband, family and network of friends.

Taking people up on their offers of help and delegating tasks to your partner are certainly ways to better manage your time. Naturally this is not a one way street and I am always happy to help others in this way as well.

10. Communicate With Your Partner

This sounds quite obvious, but i often have a very clear idea of what I am doing and assume my husband does as well. Chatting about what is on our to do lists, we can then work out cross overs and how we can help each other out. My husband works in the city, so has access to major department stores, so if I need to do something like change over the size of a child’s new item of clothing, he can often do this for me.

What tips do you have for managing your time as a parent?

Technorati Tags: parenting, time management

• Monthly Review April
• Managing School Paperwork
• Free E-book - Planning With Kids Top 100 Tips, Volume 1
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Time to take a look at what I achieved in February and what I would like to accomplish in March:

Key Tasks for February

1. Settle the children into Term 1 at school.
   

   Work in progress. So far everything has gone quite smoothly. Possum loves school and is generally the first ready in the morning. She is very tired by the end of the week though, so we need to manage week end time well, so she returns to school well rested.

2. Post three times a week on Planning With Kids, keeping one week in advance.
   

   Done. I wrote recently about what process I am using to achieve this on Blog Time Management Tips.

3. Spend individual time with each child, as they adjust to the new family member.
   

   Getting there. Probably not as much individual time as I would like. This month saw the end of cricket season which means until football starts mid April, we will have one less after school activity and Saturday mornings free, so this should help free up some time.

4. Gradually start exercising again.
   

   I have made it back to the gym 2 - 3 times a week, doing post natal type exercises. It always feels good to get the body going and have a good stretch.

5. Send out thank you cards for the birth of our son.
   

   Half completed. They have been designed and I am now waiting for them to come back from being printed, so this item will remain on the task list for next month.

Key Tasks for March

Like last month, I will be keeping key tasks for March to a minimum. Even though they are self set goals, I still tend to feel stressed if I am not achieving the things I have set for myself. Therefore I have found it better to be realistic and set what is achievable:

1. Mr I and myself to go out for dinner (belated wedding anniversary celebration).
2. Continue posting three times a week on Planning With Kids, keeping one week in advance.
3. Organise the Christening for our new son J5 (throughout the pregnancy we referred to the baby as Junior No.5, which has now been abbreviated to J5).
4. Complete another bulk menu planning session.
5. Send out thank you cards for the birth of our son.

What is on your to do list for March?

Technorati Tags: family organisation, goals

Similar Posts:
• Monthly Review January
• Monthly Review April
• Monthly Review - February
• Monthly Review - March