I'm getting a little frustrated and dissatisfied at the moment.  One of the basic ideas of TJEd or Leadership Education as espoused by the DeMilles is to structure the time, not the content -- set aside time for learning to happen, but don't plan math for 9:30 to 10:00, French from 10:00 to 10:30, etc.  So that's what I've been trying to do.  I do loosely schedule my own studies, and I do have a basic schedule for our morning devotional and a bit of read-aloud, and then we call it "free school time" until lunch.  The idea is everyone goes about their business -- learning materials are stored in a cupboard or closet and the bookcases are in the living room, but really the only limits they place on school time is no friends, no tv, no comp/video games, and I agree with that.  But when free time starts, I feel like everything just falls apart.  The house gets messy(er), for one.  The kids sometimes get bored.  I feel like, this is the time for me to get some studying done (generally I like to work on my history studies, French, and practise piano in free time), but of course, there are interruptions.  I know I should welcome interruptions, but honestly, I feel so scatterbrained from all of them, yk?  Like I can never string together two thoughts in a row without someone needing something.  It doesn't help that the toddler is, well, a toddler, and an avid climber, and can find anything that gets left lying around, slide it across the floor to whatever she wants to climb on, and suddenly be trying to push over the cpu or standing on the piano keys or dumping out the contents of the spice drawer.  The boys get especially frustrated, because they can no longer have any freedom from her destroying anything they try to build.  She loves putting her hands into lego, shaking her hands around in it, and throwing it everywhere.  She feels terribly left out if they are building something or doing crafts on the table.  Giving her something similar on the floor doesn't help.  Sigh.  I have been tempted more times in the last few weeks than in the entire history of my motherhood to break out the playpen that someone gave us.  Hmmmm, I wonder if she might actually like it.  Or maybe the boys would like it, and she could climb on the table and feel like she is getting the better deal.  Not that we have room for it....

I guess I'm just feeling like, if I had more of a plan for our time, I wouldn't feel like we were all over the place, and I might feel like we were actually accomplishing something.  D was bored when free time started yesterday, and sometimes I end up doing something with bored kids, sometimes I let them find their own solution to the boredom.  I decided to ask if he wanted to do some more math activities from his math book (Making Math Meaningful).  So, first off, we couldn't find these manipulatives we made and needed.  (They are just little strips of paper that we cut out of the book -- equal and unequal lengths, labeled with a letter of the alphabet, and they ask if b and c are equal or unequal, etc.)  Spent some time searching for those.  No luck.  So we went on to the next activity -- you needed long, thin objects, some the same length, some different (like pencils or pens).  Used pencil crayons.  The next activity, you needed ten each of links, counting chips, and linking counting squares.  Well, you really just needed three groups of similar-sized objects, but I did my best to find the same kinds of things:  paperclips, lego squares (we have some already separate for counting with), and these litte foam geometric shapes.  Oh, and we needed a paper bag -- some container for the kid to pull them out of.  I used a cloth bag.  But, it took time to gather everything up -- D was waiting and getting bored-er, M was getting into everywhere I tried looking for things and trying to climb everything, and S was in the bathroom (the kids' favourite place for making a mess).  D enjoyed the activity (pull out a random handful, sort the three groups of objects, and then I ask how many paper clips?  How many lego?  He writes them down, and has to write the equal or unequal sign), but it really didn't last very long.  We did end up having fun with this big magnet we have and the paperclips (it was strong enough to pull them around through our inch-thick maple table).  I guess my picture of "free time" is the kids, say, happily going through the material in the school closet and building lego castles or putting on puppet shows or putting on a concert or doing puzzles or making paper airplanes or sculpting weird creatures or making neat shapes with the tangrams or reading or doing dot-to-dots or writing notes to imaginary friends or going around the house measuring everything they can find or....  Instead, everyone is trying to keep away from M, the boys are constantly asking for tv or comp time, and I can never set a wonderful example of diligent scholarship for more than 30 seconds at a time.  I know M will only be a toddler for so long... kids grow up so fast... but right now, it feels like time is moving so slowly, and we're not making any progress.

D was a big help yesterday.  He was upset when he found out that I had done the load of diapers myself.  I didn't want him handling the dirty dipes, ick.  But, oh man, I just realized that when I told him he could go down and move them from the washer to the dryer, they had only finished one cycle -- I usually run them on a second cycle with no detergent to rinse them really well.  D also helped make dinner and unload the dishwasher.  The boys didn't watch any tv yesterday -- they did play a bit on the puter.