Out With The Old

So, Christmas is officially over (in our house).  The decorations are down - whatever could be recycled has been - and the house looks kinda enormous 😂

And so it's time to wish you all a very Happy and Healthy New Year xx

Who's made/ making resolutions?  Care to share?

Mine are - to take it slow 😄  😄

We've had a glorious, routine-less fortnight of lazy, restful days, family, friends, too much food, very few chores and basically utter relaxation 😆  I actually feel quite rejuvenated.  After the stressful run up to Christmas, the event itself was surprisingly stress-free 😁

So now I need to slowly reintroduce routine to the kids. I've been guilty in the past of rushing things, becoming anxious and trying to force the kids back in to a conventional mould too quickly (lol - at all!)

But this New Year we are taking it slow. We started with a return to Bed Time today - albeit an hour later, and no enforced lights out. What I want is for them to gradually readjust rather than feel instantly robbed of the freedom they've had.

So, my plan is to make the return to the ordinary more seamless and less abrupt.  A gradual use up of the Christmas food, a slow return to set meal times, a staggered reducing of bedtime and lights out.  And a slow reintroduction of our Learning routine - lots of reading together, colouring, chatting, playing board games and card games. Maybe some online learning, watching a few nature documentaries and gradually stepping it up at a place they are not just comfortable with, but largely even unaware of 😃

We've got our Geography Club planned for later this month. We'll be learning about Italy - so lots of new things to explore on that theme.

We also have our Learning Group planned, a friend is teaching this one and we're going to be learning about Birds 🐦

DS wants to do some more research about his greatest passion, Carnivorous Plants. He is writing a book about them, and bought some new seeds with his Christmas money he wants to have a go at cultivating. I'll let you know how we get on.

DD and her friend are also keen to start their own mini book group.  They both struggle with shyness in a large group and don't find it the easiest to put themselves or their ideas forward, so we're going to give them the opportunity to just work on this together and see how they get on. They worked beautifully together over the Christmas holidays - designing and making dolls clothes together, so both us Mum's are excited about nurturing this desire of theirs to work collaboratively on things. I think it will massively improve their self-esteem and confidence as they support and encourage each other's ideas.

Apart from that my resolutions are to stay healthy. To continue to make sure I listen to my body, say No sometimes, eat healthily and get enough sleep 💖

My other resolution is to budget better and do more as a family. Work pressures and constraints have meant DH has been increasingly absent over the autumn/ winter terms and existing HE commitments meant we were financially over-committed at times.  So I'm looking to cut back on our group commitments and free up.more time (and money!) for family 💞

Now they're all in writing, you can hold me to them 😁😁

So now I've showed you mine, are you gonna tell me yours? 😆