If you’ve ever tried to hold a small frog—make that five small frogs—in one hand without squishing them, you know what bedtime is like at my house right now. I’ll just get one frog contained and two more will slip through my fingers, only to be found mixing potions in the bathroom. Then another one will hop off to find his little miniature froggy backpack to get the homework assignment he totally forgot about and desperately needs my help to complete. Before I know it, they’re all hopping all over the place, and I’m just hopping mad.

Back in August 2019, I wrote the post Routine Experimentation, where I talked about several of the experiments I was conducting in my home laboratory with my five little guinea pigs (to switch to another animal analogy). This is actually one of my favorite things about motherhood—troubleshooting problem areas and figuring out creative solutions. I like to play the role of mad scientist. 

Of course a lot has changed since last August, as tends to happen where kids are involved, so I thought it was time for an update on how those experiments fared, and to tell you about the new experiments I’m rolling out. 

Morning Routine

I’m happy to report that our basic morning routine is still going strong. I still wake up at 5, as long as I’ve gotten a decent night’s sleep, and spend some time planning my day, reading, writing, and thinking. One new addition to my routine is using Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner. I didn’t think I wanted a physical paper planner, because I use the calendar and to-do lists on my phone, but my husband bought me this one as a gift, and I converted immediately. It really helps me focus on my main priorities for the day, and keeps all my wandering thoughts and plans in one place. I’m totally hooked. One of the best features is that it includes a place each day to list the Daily Big 3—the three things that you most want to accomplish each day. And then you do the same thing each week, picking your three main priorities. 

After my alone time, I still snuggle the kids awake, one at a time, and spend some time talking to them about the day ahead. I’ll spare all the details of our mornings here, because I go into more detail about it in both episodes 14 and 24. 

Another thing that’s changed is our breakfast routine. Back in August, I had a rotating breakfast schedule, I cooked breakfast three days a week and they got their own breakfast on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But now I have a new rule about making breakfast—I will not make breakfast in a messy kitchen. As a morning person, I have always struggled with getting the kitchen clean at night. I’m just too tired at the end of the day to do much more than put the food away. It’s supposed to be the kids’ job, but they’re not very good at it either. The promise of a hot breakfast adds a little extra incentive. It sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, but at least I’m not stuck doing both dinner and breakfast dishes in the morning. Also, this new rule means less micromanaging them to do their kitchen chores; more natural consequences.

Also, my kids are still making their own lunches, but I got sick of them complaining about having nothing to pack, so I’ve turned the shopping list over to them too. Each Sunday I ask them to work together to make the lunch shopping list for the week. I tell them I will only buy things on the list, so it’s their own problem if they don’t plan well, or if they eat their lunch items early in the week and have to scramble to find food at other times.

They’re also in charge of claiming the food they want to pack for the week. On Monday afternoons, I do my grocery shopping right before I pick them up from school, so the kids can help me unload. Then I bring out the sandwich bags and they put snack food into bags and claim what they want by putting them in baskets in their own cubbies. Last week I added the most crucial element to the routine: I now play the song “No Diggity” on repeat to help them “bag it (bag it up).” They roll their eyes, but they dance along as enthusiastically as I do. 

After School

I still try to prepare for the afternoon by cooking or at least prepping dinner around 2:00 and then taking a break from to read, relax or take a quick catnap so I’m on top of my game when the kids come home. I used to be able to serve dinner right away when they got home, but with our current activities, it usually happens around 6:00 most nights. 

It used to drive me crazy that the first thing the kids asked when they got into the car was, “What’s for dinner?” This was mostly annoying because I had gotten into a meal-planning slump and didn’t have an answer for them half of the time. So this winter I changed my whole meal-planning system from mostly digital to mostly analog. Now I plan our meals (with the kids’ help) for two weeks at a time and post them on the side of my fridge. I’ll explain the details of the system in the next post—How She Plans Meals—but just posting the menu has solved the problem of starting our after-school routine with that annoying question. 

The other question that used to drive me crazy after school was, “Mom, can you do the code to the computer?” I was usually in the middle of doing something important, and did not want to stop in the middle of it to determine if chores and homework were done and enter the code for computer time. Plus, even the hour that I allowed on school days seemed like too much time to spend on the computer in those brief after-school hours. So we discussed it as a family and decided to ban computers on weekdays, and allow more time on the weekend. We’re still figuring out exactly what “more time” means, since the first two weekends of this trial were a total binge fest. For the kids who are struggling in school, we have a rule that all missing assignments have to be done first, and if their grades are below As and Bs, they earn screentime minute for minute by studying. 

To be honest, I really hate micromanaging screens like this, but when I’ve tried letting them be in charge, the screens are just so alluring that they do nothing else. So we just keep experimenting, with the end-goal of teaching them to self-regulate. 

As for after-school activities, in last August’s post, I talked about my plan to have my 9-year-old run soccer practice for the younger kids during my 11-year-old’s football practice, to save some money and driving time, and I’m happy to report that it was amazing. We recruited some of their friends as well, and they had a blast and got lots of exercise. Best fall sports schedule ever!

One new thing I’m experimenting with is letting my oldest son drop piano lessons and switch to guitar. This was a painful decision, because he’s really good at the piano, and although he claims to hate it, I often catch him stopping to play just for fun as he passes by. I worried that the guitar would be a passing fancy and that it would then be too hard to restart piano when he gets busy with high school next year. But he’s two months in on guitar lessons, and still can’t keep his hands off the thing. He’s putting even more time into his band, and working hard. So I’d call this experiment a success so far. I’m also planning to buy some piano music from artists he loves from time to time, to entice him to keep up his piano skills on the side.

Since winter is our slow time for after school athletics, and since it’s still a bit dark for much outdoor play after school, I’m still trying to figure out the best way to help the kids get a bit more exercise. 

Bedtime Routine

As I mentioned in the intro, bedtime is our biggest pain point right now. It’s complicated to juggle so many different ages, personalities, and circadian rhythms in one bedtime routine! 

One thing we’ve actually really got down right now is gathering for family scripture study and prayer at 7:00. Since my husband, David, rarely makes it home in time for dinner, this is our best shot at getting the whole family together in one place each day. He still doesn’t always make it home in time, but we have it either way. Keeping the time consistent has been the best way to make sure we prioritize it. We’ve gotten really good at dropping everything else at 7:00 and meeting in the family room. That’s not to say this is always a pleasant, peaceful, philosophical discussion. There are plenty of shenanigans, and I’ve been known to shout, “That’s it, scriptures are cancelled” and send them all crying to bed. But at least we’ve finally got the timing down. 

Now that we’ve got this habit down, I’m trying to piggyback another habit to it—flossing. My plan is to hand out flossers as we start our reading, so I know it’s actually happening. This idea came to me at the dentist’s office when I yet again had to sheepishly admit that there’s not much flossing going on at my house beyond the dance move.

After a family prayer, the madness begins. It’s usually 9:00 by the time everyone’s finally in bed, after much unpleasantness. I’ve just been kind of struggling through, trying new things here and there, but mostly just dreading this time of day. 

Then, I recently interviewed my friend, KaeCee Reed, and asked her about her bedtime routine. It’s a lovely process of stories and games, and something the whole family looks forward to.  Granted, her kids are tiny and there are only two of them, but it gave me hope that bedtime could be something other than dreadful. So I rededicated myself to figuring out a routine that will work for us. I need to rewrite my story, with a happier ending to each day!

The first thing I did, again in the spirit of giving my kids more freedom, was to send the oldest two into the basement to do whatever they want until 8:30, as long as their homework is done. That gives them an incentive to get their homework done early and also gets two of five little frogs out of the picture. It also gives them time to play music together (occasionally) or (more frequently) watch TV or movies that are a bit too old for the littles. I’m hoping it will be a good bonding time.

For the youngest three, I first tried setting staggered lights out times, in order of age, so I could focus on one at a time. The idea was that they each got 15 minutes, and we could waste that time taking a long time to do pajamas and teeth or spend it reading or snuggling. But other kids would invariably interrupt the time, so I’d keep pushing it back, and then as soon as I moved to the next kid, the previous kid got up and started fooling around or interrupting. 

I have one child in particular that seems to be the spark that sets the whole powderkeg aflame each night, so my next experiment was to convince this child to work with me as a team to get the others to bed quickly so we could have some time together alone after they went to bed. This sounded great to both of us in theory, but in practice, he just got the younger ones riled up when he tried to help them get ready for bed. 

Then I would get mad at him, and cancel our time together. Luckily it didn’t take me long to realize this was an utterly predictable outcome and that I had set the plan up to fail. He’s such a fun child and just can’t control his creative energy. I don’t want to stifle that, and honestly, I couldn’t if I tried. And I don’t want to punish him for who he is. I just need to redirect his energy somehow. And I should have known that he definitely should not be in charge of settling anyone else down for bed.

So my current experiment is just to keep him well occupied and out of the way until his turn. Sometimes that means he takes a long shower while I get my four-year-old, Ezra, to bed; sometimes that means watching a quick show in my room. 

My new plan is to get Ezra’s pajamas on and teeth brushed before family scripture time, and then set the timer for 15 minutes for snuggles and just making sure he stays in bed. Then I let him listen to the Circle Round podcast while I read to the other two in my bed. 

After reading time, assuming it goes well, I reward my spirited child with 15 minutes of alone time in his room, reading, talking, or playing a quiet game. My daughter is an early riser like me, so we do our alone time in the morning.

I’m still working out the kinks, and it’s too early to tell, but I’ll let you know how this new bedtime routine pans out when I revisit this topic again in the fall. 

Allowance

Another experiment we’re trying right now is swinging the pendulum back to paying our kids a regular allowance. If you read The Great Allowance Debate and How She Teaches Kids About Money you’ll know that I’ve gone back and forth between the two strategies of paying kids based on chores or having an allowance that is independent of chores. We were on a pay-by-the-chore system for quite a while, but it didn’t seem to be improving the work ethic liked we’d hoped. And it was becoming increasingly clear that my kids needed some lessons on money management.

At the moment I was debating this, Family Looking Up recorded a great podcast episode advocating for allowance, which gave me the final push back over to that side. So we’re following their guest, John Lanza’s, advice and giving the teenagers a larger monthly allowance and the younger ones their age in allowance each week. This is way more than we’ve ever paid any of them, but we’re going to make the teenagers pay their own phone bills and buy all their own clothes, shoes, extra food, entertainment, etc. Again, I’ll let you know how it goes! So far it has just meant even more LEGOs in our ridiculously large collection, but I’m going to give it a chance.

Behavior Coach

Perhaps my favorite experiment is that we now have a behavior coach, Karly Allen of Monster Free Mothering. She comes to my house once a month, meets with me and the kids to discuss our progress and problems, and has helped us develop both a family plan and individual plans. In our family plan right now, we’re focusing on listening the first time and being helpful. We add marbles to a jar when they obey right away, and it’s been a helpful way to focus our efforts on that. We filled it once and went out for ice cream, but it was clear that we needed another go, as it took two months. 

It’s been so nice to have such a knowledgeable ally for both the ideas and the support. Recognition that yes, I am facing some really difficult behavior issues with my kids, has been so validating. But she also gives me hope that we can figure it out. 

Chores

We’re also trying a new cleaning system. We used to pick a family cleaning project each Saturday morning and try to work together on it until it got done, but this always led to fights and comparisons as to who was working harder.

I had had enough, so I called a family meeting, listed all the common rooms in the house, and we assigned one to each person, including my husband, David and I. The kids are still in charge of keeping their own rooms and bathrooms clean, of course, but now they each have another room to clean before playing with friends or on the computer. This will make their Saturday jobs more predictable and less dependent on the work ethics of their siblings. With our new system, they can work as fast or slow as they want, and they have no one else to blame if they can’t play. 

Health

I recently listened to a great episode of the 10 Things To Tell You podcast about Bandaids—specifically asking, “What things in your life have you been covering with a Bandaid that you should just fix already?” This helped me realize that I’ve been putting Bandaids on health issues for years, from child-birth induced incontinence issues to all sorts of stupid minor injuries that started happening about the time I hit 40 last year. Around this age, not only are the injuries themselves a bit embarrassing, but the causes are too. 

For example, for several weeks, I had terrible back pain from an injury that happened when I got up off a bed after a Harry Potter read-aloud session. Embarrassing. 

I recently had severe tennis elbow for almost two years, that majorly limited my activity. The cause? Your classic jumprope/Hamilton injury. I first hurt it turning a jumprope while volunteering for Jump Rope for Heart at the elementary school, and then made it worse by excessively playing Hamilton songs on the piano. My kids wanted to put on a performance of the first act of the play with their friends and we prepped for it for three months. Those songs are hard to play! Anyway, it was just a ridiculous injury.

I decided to experiment with a new exercise regimen so these stupid injuries don’t keep happening. So I joined a gym for the first time in my life, instead of just dropping in when I felt like it. The commitment of belonging to a gym actually made a huge difference in both how regularly I attend and how I approach the classes. 

I started taking a Barre class once a week, to get stronger, and I love it! I’m continuing my regular High Fitness class too, since I can’t live without it. I love it so much! My friend Sandy Liddell is the best fitness instructor I’ve ever had and an amazing dancer–and it also happens to be a crazy good workout. But whereas before I was mostly in it for the dancing, I’m trying to put more into it and really work hard to get strong. I also decided to move from the back row to the front row. If you live near me and want to come check out either of these classes, message me—I’d love to work out with you, and you can try it for free!

Whew—when I list all of my experiments like this, I realize it sounds kind of crazy. But remember, this is fun for me. I love the tweaking. This purpose of this episode is not to get you to upend every system in your house with crazy experiments, but to encourage you to tackle one or two of your current problems like a mad scientist—to get creative about fixing some of the routines and systems that aren’t working for you anymore. I’ll let you know how this most recent round of experiments turns out!