AP Parenting on a schedule! :D

I've always fought schedules.... NO!! Can't. Stand. Routine...!!! However, when I make 'em, they work so splendidly I wonder why I don't use them more often! :D We have a super schedule worked out for the evening. At 8 pm the kids head up to get ready for bed. They pee, wash faces, floss, brush and rinse their teeth, put their clothes in the laundry basket, then head to the bedroom where they put on their pj's and lay out their clothes for the morning. At 8:30 they are in bed and I start to read them a story. We're reading Little Women at the moment and the chapters are quite long so Jack usually falls asleep whilst I read. If not I sing a couple of lullabies after the story then it's lights out by 9 and I'm back down stairs for an hour before I go to bed! it works GREAT and the children love knowing what they need to do and not having to THINK about what to do next. I've made a schedule for myself for morning so that I don't forget to take my vitamins, feed the cat and so on. I've worked it so that I put the kettle on to boil for tea and whilst it's boiling I can unload the dishwasher! Clever eh!? :D LOL!! Now we've got these two schedules pretty much ingrained I need to come up with one or two more. I tend to start making dinner at 5 and we eat at 6. I try to clean the kitchen up before I put the kids up to bed, but sometimes we get carried away doing other stuff... a schedule will get me on track! :D We like to play games after dinner and last night I also got a walk in before bed time... a good thing I'm thinking! : D If I do it right we can get all these things in with ease! :D

Schedules, people. Don't have one? Get one!! LOL!!