Is my afternoon break a thing of the past???

Having some downtime every afternoon is very important to me. It's pretty much the only thing that allows me to still be human when Dan gets home. It's my #1 piece of advice (to anyone who asks) about how to make family life work--take your break in the afternoon so you can be available for your husband when he gets home. For us that means if Dan wants to watch a movie together or something, it's not a big deal because I can do my scrapping or reading in the afternoon. If he wants to listen to music I don't like, it's no problem because I have all day to play what I want to listen to. I really think it's one of the keys to a marriage that works.

And yet, here I am. I decided at the beginning of the year that we'd do school in the afternoon so I didn't have to take care of 3 little kids while I was teaching the 4th. My idea was to do school from 1-3. Somehow, though, by the time I get Mariah down for her nap, feed Esther, clean up from lunch or do a chore or two, it's closer to 2:30. And now Mariah's in a big girl bed, so I can't ignore her when she wakes up. We're training her to stay put until we get her up, but, well...staying put isn't one of my 2-year-old's strengths.

So that basically leaves me "on duty" all day long. At least for now, until the girls get used to their new arrangement. I just don't fully relax unless they're all sleeping. And it leaves me not knowing when to make the phone calls that I need to not have interrupted. Maybe it won't take long to get the kinks work out. But if you're reading this--PRAY FOR ME!!!