This installment is centered on home life...warning - our lives are not that interesting :-) Here are the questions RK put forth -
1. What happens at your house in a given weekday evening? Who’s doing what? (Mom, Dad, and kids--together or separate.)
2. How are the chores divided up in your house? Who does what when it comes to laundry, cooking, cleaning, yard work?
3. How often do you have time with you just you and a spouse, even just a little time here or there? What do you do with that time--talk, work, plan, read, etc? (PG rated, please. HA!)
4. Compared to what you thought it would be like 10 years ago, would you say life in your home is...
~Nothing like you thought it would be.
~Kind of like you thought it would be.
~Exactly like you thought it would be.
~Better than you thought it would be.
Ok, let's get started. First of all, we really don't have a routine here at home. Steven gets home about 6ish - usually a bit before - and we sit down to dinner. We don't necessarily fall into the traditional sit around at the same table - the older boys like to sit at the "tall chairs" at the counter, but we are all in the same room. When dinner is done the boys are encouraged to take their plates to the sink and then they basically ask for the activity of the evening - usually involves some type of wrestling downstairs. That is daddy's job, not mine so I usually find something to do upstairs so I don't witness the carnage of the fights. Sometimes we put a movie on the computer for the kids to watch (we don't have TV), and other times we do "quiet" things like play-doh, reading, or something like that. Occasionally we go somewhere - but Steven is pretty much a homebody so we usually just stick around the house. The kids usually head to bed about 8ish so really its only a couple of hours of family activity.
The "chores" are not quite officially designated, but they have fallen into patterns. I am the straightener and deep cleaner - for example, Steven will put the dishes in the dishwasher but will never clean the sink or run the garbage disposal, so he helps quite a bit, but I usually need to finish it off with the chemicals and the elbow grease. Steven does the laundry - this all started cause he likes his clothes line dried and I don't/won't take the time to do that, so he took it over and I said "great!"...and other than the occasional lack of stain removal treatment to particular garments, he pretty much does a decent job. All of our clothes are still their original colors anyway. I'm the cook - I am afraid of Steven's meal combinations...and Steven is the yard guy - I don't touch it except for the occasional flower planting (and subsequent killing).
Steven and I get the majority of our "couple" time after the boys are in bed. But we don't do things together usually - just in the same room - Steven usually has his nose in a newspaper or boring informational magazine...sometimes he is looking stuff up on the computer. I piddle around on the computer or get things together for the next day or I might tackle some stuff from work. Some (most) weekends one of the grandparents will take anywhere from one to all three of the boys for a night and we might rent a movie or if I ask sweetly enough Steven will take us to dinner (he HATES going out to dinner usually - he's getting better about it though). We do talk, but I think we lack good discussion topics at times - he really doesn't care to hear about what mundane things the boys have done during the day or what kid programs at church I am working on and I don't understand (or maybe even care - that sounds terrible) about what he does at work (he works with an investment and trust dept at a local bank)...so we might listen politely to each other, but we don't really add to the conversations to keep them going sometimes.
I think everything is "kind of like I thought it would be"...I don't think to some extent I realized how very different Steven and I can be with our interests before we were married - so I think I anticipated that we would do more fun stuff together - but I also think that kids throw a monkey wrench into that a lot of times and we will probably do more stuff together when the kids are starting to do more on their own. I also don't think I knew our family would be so "large" - I didn't have a plan in that area really and it has been very interesting (and exciting) to see the roads God takes you down (I guarantee that Steven did NOT anticipate 4 children! but I didn't sneak them in on him!) Anyway, I sometimes wish that we all put a little more effort into family upkeep, but I also know that we have control over that, and we get out of something what we put into it...when I find myself wishing that some other family member put "more in" I am immediately reminded of how I slack things off too and how I can only change my own behaviors. It's easier to let things slide for sure...that's quite unfortunate that I could be so lazy with something so important, but we're all learning through things together and for the most part we come out with our heads above water anyway.
So if you stuck around and read all of this you deserve a treat - go get a soda or something.
Ok, let's get started. First of all, we really don't have a routine here at home. Steven gets home about 6ish - usually a bit before - and we sit down to dinner. We don't necessarily fall into the traditional sit around at the same table - the older boys like to sit at the "tall chairs" at the counter, but we are all in the same room. When dinner is done the boys are encouraged to take their plates to the sink and then they basically ask for the activity of the evening - usually involves some type of wrestling downstairs. That is daddy's job, not mine so I usually find something to do upstairs so I don't witness the carnage of the fights. Sometimes we put a movie on the computer for the kids to watch (we don't have TV), and other times we do "quiet" things like play-doh, reading, or something like that. Occasionally we go somewhere - but Steven is pretty much a homebody so we usually just stick around the house. The kids usually head to bed about 8ish so really its only a couple of hours of family activity.
The "chores" are not quite officially designated, but they have fallen into patterns. I am the straightener and deep cleaner - for example, Steven will put the dishes in the dishwasher but will never clean the sink or run the garbage disposal, so he helps quite a bit, but I usually need to finish it off with the chemicals and the elbow grease. Steven does the laundry - this all started cause he likes his clothes line dried and I don't/won't take the time to do that, so he took it over and I said "great!"...and other than the occasional lack of stain removal treatment to particular garments, he pretty much does a decent job. All of our clothes are still their original colors anyway. I'm the cook - I am afraid of Steven's meal combinations...and Steven is the yard guy - I don't touch it except for the occasional flower planting (and subsequent killing).
Steven and I get the majority of our "couple" time after the boys are in bed. But we don't do things together usually - just in the same room - Steven usually has his nose in a newspaper or boring informational magazine...sometimes he is looking stuff up on the computer. I piddle around on the computer or get things together for the next day or I might tackle some stuff from work. Some (most) weekends one of the grandparents will take anywhere from one to all three of the boys for a night and we might rent a movie or if I ask sweetly enough Steven will take us to dinner (he HATES going out to dinner usually - he's getting better about it though). We do talk, but I think we lack good discussion topics at times - he really doesn't care to hear about what mundane things the boys have done during the day or what kid programs at church I am working on and I don't understand (or maybe even care - that sounds terrible) about what he does at work (he works with an investment and trust dept at a local bank)...so we might listen politely to each other, but we don't really add to the conversations to keep them going sometimes.
I think everything is "kind of like I thought it would be"...I don't think to some extent I realized how very different Steven and I can be with our interests before we were married - so I think I anticipated that we would do more fun stuff together - but I also think that kids throw a monkey wrench into that a lot of times and we will probably do more stuff together when the kids are starting to do more on their own. I also don't think I knew our family would be so "large" - I didn't have a plan in that area really and it has been very interesting (and exciting) to see the roads God takes you down (I guarantee that Steven did NOT anticipate 4 children! but I didn't sneak them in on him!) Anyway, I sometimes wish that we all put a little more effort into family upkeep, but I also know that we have control over that, and we get out of something what we put into it...when I find myself wishing that some other family member put "more in" I am immediately reminded of how I slack things off too and how I can only change my own behaviors. It's easier to let things slide for sure...that's quite unfortunate that I could be so lazy with something so important, but we're all learning through things together and for the most part we come out with our heads above water anyway.
So if you stuck around and read all of this you deserve a treat - go get a soda or something.
4 comments:
Very interesting...not boring at all. I was looking forward to your post even when I was writing the questions, particularly because I knew there was no TV, and that's our crutch.
Thanks for participating! Hopefully I get to meet up with you guys and those boys one of these days.
we would love that - we would be happy to take you to our favorite mexican establishments :-)
Thanks for the encouraging "sneak peek" into your family. You had good words to share :o)
thanks for stopping by Jan!
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