The Basics.

Waxing lyrical about all the big plans I have for my new-look whanau count for nothing if you don't get the basics right.  I know I have spoken of rules, and routines are almost as important. I have been pretty exhausted in the past few days so routines and home cooked dinners were out the window (thank goodness cereal is so nutritious and the kids love it!).  It doesn't take much for disorder to reign and chaos to take over.  I have a pretty stressful job and there is no time really to de-zone my work head and get into Mum-space.  I have to hit the ground running when I get home to maximise the 3-4 hours contact time with my kids at the end of a work day.  Ideally that is, but lately I have just been hitting the ground.

My kids are pretty normal kids, like most of the nations children.  Angelic, no-ears (or partially working ones), big-mouths, ego-centric pains in the butt, and their individual needs are paramount and demand my attention as soon as I get home.  I barely make it through the door - of the car that is, and my five year old launches himself at me like I have been away for months, the younger girls are all smiley faced and clutching for free hands to hold or checking for treats, the oldest boy complains I forgot something and the eldest bless her cotton-socks just rolls her "oh yay Mum's back haha not" eyes at me.  Kura pānui, homework books, new schoolground scrapes, lost property inventories, food shopping lists, personal shopping lists, staying at friends' houses requests, friends staying at our house requests, the always innovative new ways to get more money from me requests (x5)...all that plus so much more is shoved at me while I walk from the car to the house.  Once I'm in the house the "what's for dinner Mum" chorus begins.  I think the time between turning the car into the driveway and turning the car off is my new 'Mum time'.

But seriously, that routine business is Gold.  I need a Mum-planner from hell and whoever can nail that sh*t and bundle it into an app for Android phones (yes, Android, iPhone schmiPhone!!) will make mega-bucks.  I have read all the books, of course.  And I have tried all sorts of routines and strategies with varying success.  The sticker reward chart.  The umm.  Okay, I've only tried one.  But I did try that various ways!  Routines are more than just providing sanity for me, it gives kids structure, provides rules, is hopefully underpinned by whanau values, and teaches responsibility and consequences for actions and behaviours.  But it takes up soo much time.  Being a solo Mum and time do not exist on the same plane.

There is a sense of what everybody needs to do already - we all have jobs, and heavens I have enough kids for them to be able to share the workload.  And there is a routine of sorts - I yell till everything is done. And I do that consistently.  But I am woeful in handing out consequences when things are not done.  Bellowing at kids is not giving them consequences, and they soone enough learn to ignore that.  But routines are not just about working around the home.  There is the bath, book, karakia routine that I used religiously (pardon the pun) for the first year after the split.  It was something their father and I shared in our former lives, and something I clung to for the kids to provide consistency and a sense of stability in that first year as a new whanau.  It was a great way to reconnect with my kids at the end of each day, and I found I needed it as much as they did.  I could monitor and gauge emotions, check well-being at Kura, and listen to their little voices.  Strangely that has dropped off our daily routine, I guess the kids are stronger and more settled, and maybe I am too. 

These days I talk to my kids as much as I can, make mental notes about where I think they are on a scale of sad to happy, help with the big homework stuff and delegate the little things to the older kids.  I give heaps of kisses and cuddles, and try and laugh as much as I can with them.  The basics.  The housework stuff - thats a work in progress.