Our schedule is always getting more and more busy, I've had to make a family-times table for our fridge in order not to forget anything:
Every
Monday and Thursday morning, Úlfrún and I go to meet other stay-at-home moms and their little kids at a local playground, no matter what the weather is like ... I needed something to break up the week for Úlfrún socially, so I found these women on the internet who were all home alone with small children, we've managed to meet regularly twice a week for a few weeks now, playing in the sandbox, on the swings, slide ... oh, it's wonderful, even when it's raining!
Every
Monday and Wednesday after play school, I take Garpur to his swimming lessons in a school close to his play school. These lessons are run by a very old and respected sports team (KR) and taught by a great coach and his assistant. There are only eight kids in each group, so they get so much attention, and Garpur learns so fast, it's amazing to see the progress form week to week. He´s swimming with a cork and frog-feet across the deep end of the pool now!
Every
Friday afternoon, I try to pick Garpur up early from play school, and drive with the kids to Mosfellsdalur to my parents place. It's the day of the week when my mom's not working and we spend some time together inside or in the freedom of Inga amma and Róbert afi's property in the country side.
Every
Monday evening I'm planning to go to belly dance lessons. For the last two Mondays I've gone and basically just watched because of my back pain, but soon I hope to be able to join in.
On
Tuesday and Thursday evenings Már and I go to karate practices, of course, Már has been going alone to these recently, because of my back, but I'm sure that'll be fixed soon. Edda, our favorite babysitter in the world, comes and takes care of the kids when Már and I go to karate together. On
Saturdays, in the middle of the day, there's a third practice, which Már takes advantage of, in stead of my belly dance practice on Mondays.
On
Saturday noons, I often teach maternity belly dancing at a yoga center close by.
On
Sunday mornings, I meet a group of women who originally met on the internet because we were all due to deliver babies in March 2006, we've kept in touch, and now we've started meeting with all our kids and let them play and run around at my karate club (when it's not in karate-use). We've made such good friends, that we're even going on a "women's only" weekend-trip to Denmark together in two weeks time, we've rented a house in Copenhagen with a hot tub ... I can't wait!
And last but not least, every other
Tuesday (or Wednesday) night, I meet up with my "saumaklúbbur" (group of friends who pretend to meet because of craft projects, but actually just meet to talk, eat and gossip)
It's amazing how much free time we do have together as a family though, despite the fact that we're this busy, but I think it's mostly due to the fact that because I'm working as a housewife now, most of the housework is out of the way when we're all together. It's great and it works out wonderfully!
