Go to Sleep!!!

2016BarnardMom
Sat, 03 Nov 2012 13:03:26 +0000

My son is the same age and has pretty much the same schedule. It was rough during tennis season because he had tennis every day after school and didn’t get home until 5:30 or 6. But, that’s over now, until track season. Currently, he wakes up easily in the morning, eats a snack when he gets home from school, takes a nap some days, starts dinner (yes, that’s his chore and it allows us to eat at a normal time and it will make him a fantastic husband some day). After we eat dinner, we usually watch the news together and then he starts on homework. He doesn’t balk at chores, although I’m flexible with when he does most of them. I ask him at the beginning of the week when he will get a chance to mow the lawn. He takes the trash out on his way out the door for school on Wednesday. I do laundry, but give him his folded pile to put away. He starts dinner most nights, as I noted earlier. If there are other things I need help with, I ask him when he can help me rather than expecting him to drop whatever he is doing and do it right then. I hold him to the time/day he gives me. It works for us.

I will qualify the “starting dinner”. I do most of the cooking on Sunday. I make meatballs, a meatloaf, taco meat, breaded chicken, etc. on Sunday mornings. Together, we make a menu for the week, working around his EC schedule. When he starts dinner, he will put the meatballs and sauce on the stove a couple hours before I get home so it’s nicely simmered. I call him when I’m halfway home and he starts cooking the pasta. On taco night, he starts the rice he likes and I cut up the tomatoes, onions, lettuce, etc. We warm the meat up while the rice is cooking. Chicken parmesan night, he takes the breaded chicken I made and puts the cheese and sauce on and puts it in the oven. We have a great system and we can eat much earlier in the evening this way, before night time activities. We set the table together and put away the leftovers/clear the table together. Team work

He asked me to teach him how to do laundry so he can do it on occasion when needed.

My goal with raising him was that he’d be a thoughtful husband who shared in the household duties…lol. Someday, his wife will thank me!