Being accountable.

I thought that by sharing my new school year resolutions, I would be more accountable and more likely to stick to them…let’s see…

Bedtime – Caleb has one and, now, so do I. I need to get at least 6-7 hours of sleep and I need to get up at 5:45/6:00. I need the sleep to recharge, to keep my temper in check, to get moving on-time in the morning.

B+: I’m doing MUCH better at getting enough sleep but there are still some nights when I simply stay up too late. Based on an article I read recently, 8 Habits of Extremely Well-Rested People, I’m going to work on a consistent wake up time too. I don’t need to be extremely well-rested…just mostly well-rested. Eric is going to hate this because I’ll get bored if I’m up too long…his honey do list is going to get rather long, I think.

Mornings – We are going to get Caleb to school before the first bell every morning (we had been shooting for 2nd bell). We’ve built in a half hour buffer in the morning. We are 2 for 2 so far. He transitions into the school better when he’s part of the mob that rushes the doors at the start of each day. If it’s a super anxious day and he can’t handle the crowd, we will be there early enough to skip it.

F: Since the first week of school we’ve been hitting 2nd bell…mostly…we’ve been late to school too. Boo. I really, really want to improve this area. Team Welin must discuss this one!

Evenings – We will be starting up homework again. Unlike most families, for us homework is optional. That is probably the one thing that I admit typical parents should feel totally jealous of, we don’t have to have homework battles. We choose to. Errr…put that way it doesn’t seem very smart. Anyway, we got a list of what the 3rd graders will have for homework (reading, every night…) and we have requested the same for Caleb…ours would need to be modified. I’m thinking some of him reading to us and some of us reading to him.

D: We have reading and sight words Monday-Thursday. Sometimes we do the sight words in the car on the way to school. Sometimes we skip it entirely. We definitely need to get better here, he’s definitely more receptive to it.

Organization – I have some ideas on how to be better organized to help manage Caleb’s anxiety and for him to gain some additional independence in the mornings in particular. I need to be organized in order to create opportunities for success for myself because I’m tired of failing at life. That requires that I get it together…so that is what I shall do.

B: I feel more organized, I have a better handle on Caleb’s days…I know what he’s eating, what specials he has, what therapies he has and of course I have the note home so I know exactly what he worked on that day. We talk about all of the the night before and in the morning. His anxiety around going to school at this point is pretty close to zero. I’m not giving myself an A yet because there’s still more I want to get done! And I did put his Under Armor shirt on backwards one day last week and his teacher had to fix it. Oops.

I’m a little bummed at this, I thought I’d been doing better. We have been struggling to get our feet back under us after losing Grampy. The next two weekends we’re traveling for fragile X events, getting in some time with other parents…some time out of our normal routine…will help, I hope.