Days That Last In Memories.

Today was possibly the best day of my life. I am currently on my phone writing this on the WordPress app, mum is making coffee in the kitchen and the children are snuggled up on the sofa under a blanket watching TV. We’re all really tired out from today. So today we…

Today we were going to get cinema tickets but we decided it was to nicer weather so instead we went on a mystery ride.

The children didn’t know where we were going so they took pictures on my phone to try and guess.

These pictures are views from the car. At this point we are about a 20 minute drive away from home (we are very lucky where we live).

Finally we got out the car and started walking through woodland.

We came to a small café where we ate a large snack. Me and mum shared a cream tea while my children had some cake (sorry for not having any pictures of the café, my children were to busy eating cake for taking photos. Then we went to see a waterfall. The waterfall was a shrine to people who wanted a blessing.

As you can see the waterfall fell through a hole in the rock. We saw a tree with money stuck in it so we stuck a ten pence coin in it ourselves. (second picture, the closest silver coin to the bottom left hand corner is our ten pence.

Here are some more photos of the shrine and the waterfall.

Then we walked back up the treacherous path and on the way spotted some bright red mushrooms.

When we got home we all had hot chocolate and snuggled together to view the photos we had taken. Thank you kids for your amazing photography skills (they are looking over my shoulder at my screen now while I’m typing this).

The Typical Weekday Routine.

The typical weekday routine. I say typical for a reason and that’s because with children it is never the same. My children now go to different schools (I’m British) my daughter still goes to primary school but my son goes to secondary school so it complicates things a little.

6:20 am. Wake up. Go to sons bedroom to wake him up. Lift him up and throw him over my shoulder because he refuses to get out of bed.
6:30 am. Receive knock on door, it’s my daughter wanting some breakfast.(no, my daughter doesn’t sleep outside but if you want to know the reason why she isn’t sleeping in the house read previous post).
6:35am. My son and daughter lay the breakfast table for us while I check that they have got their school uniform and P.E. kits ready.
6:40am. Eat Breakfast.
6:50am. Clean teeth.
6:55am. We all take turns in having a shower. If we are behind schedular my children will put underwear on and share the shower at the same time.
7:15am. Me and children share the job of clearing up breakfast dishes.
7:25am. We all get ready for school/work and children check they have got there books, pencil cases ect.
7:35am. Final check that the house is tidy and we haven’t forgotten anything.
7:40am. My son leaves for school bus.
7:45am. I go over my daughters homework with her giving her any help she needs, practicing spellings and finishing of any other work.
8:00am. My daughter does some drawing while I shave and wipe down kitchen work surfaces. (obviously I do these at different times while my daughter is drawing).
8:30am. Walk to school with my daughter.
8:40am. Kiss goodbye to my daughter before legging it home.
8:45am. Pick up my work bag and get in car.
9:00am. Arrive at work.

As you can see my son has 50 minutes less than his sister to get ready in the morning and my daughter ends up having enough time to enjoy herself. It is a strict regulated morning routine where everyone has to do work but everyone has enough time to do everything they need to do. Now I will take you through the evening routine.

3:10pm. Return home from work.
3:15pm. Pick my daughter up from school and walk home.
3:25pm. Return home again.
3:30pm. My son returns home from bus.
3:35pm. We do a exercise that loosens off our muscles and relaxes our body.
3:40pm. My children talk about what they did today and we discus anything that happened at school.
4:00pm. We all have a snack that is normally a healthy cereal bar but if someone got an award or a certificate it is a muffin or a biscuit.
4:05pm. We do homework together helping and explaining it to each other.(when we do this it is a fun way for everyone to have a go at everyone’s homework).
4:45pm. We have a break and just go to our bedroom or something personal and relaxing.
4:55pm. We do a family activity. This could be arts and crafts or cooking or anything active or creative.
5:15pm. We all help make a bit of the evening meal and then put it in to cook.
5:35pm. We make some cereal bars for the next day.
5:50pm. The evening meal has finished cooking and we leave it in the oven to wait for mum.
6:00pm. Mum arrives and we give her lots of hugs and kisses.
6:05pm. The children tell mum what they did during the day and show of any drawings or things they made.
6:10pm. Dinner is served and we feast.
6:40pm. We all get our clothes ready and pack our bags for the next day.
7:00pm. Technology hour. Where we are aloud to go on phones, computers, tv ect. This is also time where we do anything else we want to.
8:00pm. My son gives my daughter a piggy back ride to her house and we all walk back to her home.
8:05pm. The children play while me and mum have some adult time.
8:30pm. Me and my son say good bye and my daughter goes to bed.
8:35pm. Me and my son return home.
8:40pm. Me and my son have a shower each.
8:50pm. Me and my son get into our PJ’s and we have some father son time play fighting and throwing and catching my son.
9:00pm. We have some personal time reading or thinking to ourselves.
9:10pm. Lights off and my son goes to sleep.
9:15pm. I do any work that is deadlined for the next day.
9:40pm. I surf the Internet, read txts ect.
10:00pm. I have some me time.
10:10pm. I go to sleep.

Before you think how smoothly this runs, it doesn’t. There is a lot of “Do I have to” and “Cant we forget it for today”. Also the time we spend talking about the day and some of homework time is forfeited if one of my children have a club. Lots of the above schedule above wont make sense unless you read the previous post so please feel free to do that now. Take a deep breath in through you nose for 7 seconds and out through your mouth for ten seconds. We are now all calm and relaxed after the hard day we have just been through.

Question: How do you plan out your day differently with your children?

-Stay strong and stay wise-

Hello and Welcome to my Blog The Full Time Parent.

Hello and welcome to my blog The Full Time Parent. I am a parent myself with my gorgeous children an 11 year old son and a 9 year old daughter that I adore to pieces. I say I have children but really only my son is my child, my daughter is actually my niece but her mum works from 7am to 6pm every day so her daughter is my responsibility before and after school. I am a single dad with my son and my sister is a single mother with her daughter so we are like parents towards our children. We live 5 houses apart so we normally eat together as a family and we function like a family. Both of our children do have contact with their other parent but rarely see them. As a family we are not rich but equally we aren’t poor. We are bringing in enough money to own both our houses, put food on the table, pay bills and taxes and still afford a treat for our children. Together our family is strong and the five houses between us will never keep us apart. You could say my children are spoilt but I see it as giving them more opportunities in the best years of their life.

Now to the stuff about the blog. If you are a parent or want to be you can use this blog as a survival guide, handbook, or a laugh at how my family is so unorganised( I hope I’m not the only family out there that is unorganised). I hope to post on this blog at least twice a week but being a parent obviously throws up obstacles so some weeks there may be 3 posts and some weeks none but we’ll see how it goes. I would love to hear your feedback on how you would do things differently, opinions on things and general stuff. If I see a comment I really like I will paste it into my next blog and put a link to your blog.

So as a start to this strong future, give me a like, comment and follow this so you can read the daily life of a parent with children.

-Stay strong and stay wise-