Breaking routines… good, bad, or ugly?

My 4 year old, best known for his revolutionary potty training techniques, woke up this morning and decided that he didn’t feel like going to school. And, being in a sleepy haze this morning, I somehow rationalized that the 45 minute mad dash to get him school-worthy was more difficult than 9 hours alone with 3 kids! He did ‘promise’ to be good all day!

We had a great breakfast together, they enjoyed each other, they laughed and talked, they were all “I like you mommy”, and I guess being ‘high’ on this unscheduled love-fest with my babies made me give in to their requests for a movie instead of their routine nap-time.

All went well for about 30 minutes, then their attention was gone, the little ones started rubbing their eyes, the eldest started chatting… all was lost… I threatened to take off the movie, but then I thought crying was slightly more irritating! When the baby started complaining, I knew it was time to take action… so I got them ready for naptime, albeit a little later than usual.

But see, the thing about routines is that when it’s not followed, things tend to fall apart, I mean there were tantrums, tears, threats, and you know that it’s hard on the kids as well!

I find that as a stay at home mom now, it’s hard for me to be flexible with my schedule, it’s hard for me to keep it together when things don’t go as planned or expected, it’s just almost impossible to maintain my sanity when my kids refuse naptime! I’m like Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde when my alone-time is threatened!

I am learning that the best way to handle the situation where my kids don’t do as I expect, is to have a contingency plan… I try to say to myself, for example, if they don’t go to sleep, I will let them colour quietly while I work. Sometimes this does work, but sometimes I just don’t have the strength to be a good, rational mother… sometimes I just force them to sleep with semi-empty threats of toys being taken away!

Oh, I think if they were capable of expressing themselves more eloquently, they would say “You know mommy, we are not going to sleep, even if you’re mad, and in fact, your anger is giving us the strength to challenge you, and if you just let us remain awake, we would be quiet because we are tired, and that way you can work instead of feeling guilty for being angry, and then, we’ll go to bed much earlier tonight!”