time lapse

It looks like it should all fit in.  On paper.  And yet, in real life, it doesn't seem to be working.  The school year is young, and it will get easier (before the holidays come and it gets harder) but we aren't able to have hindsight at this point.

The way it looks on paper:
                             Pook                         Bug

snack                    20 minutes                 20

piano                     20                            20

sax                        20                              -

homework               1 hour (?)                 20

silent reading          20                            20

physical therapy exercises -                     20               

totals                     2 hours 20 min         1 hour 40 minutes

The time between getting home from school before dinner is about three hours.  There is no opportunity for any of these activities after dinner.  We have bath/shower, read aloud time and tuck in.  I guess Pook sometimes reads silently in bed, sometimes we read for longer to him.  We're in book five of Harry Potter right now and so we usually read downstairs while Bug gets tucked. 

Since both boys consider silent reading to be a good thing, they sometimes read longer and don't go play.  Either way, it seems to me that they're getting a chance for free time.  And yet we haven't found it this school year.

I know Pook dawdles over homework.  I compared notes with the parents of his friends last year and the other boys seemed to accomplish in 20 minutes what Pook did in an hour.  Homework isn't particularly challenging, but when it is difficult it takes him even longer.  And when he's enjoying it he spends way too long-- as he did today, inventing an island and drawing a treasure map.  We got started late (what is a normal day anyway?) after Bug's piano lesson and an emergency visit to clean the school's fish tank.  (another post entirely).  By the time we were home it was 4:30 and I thought, having done all the busy work homework while I worked with the tank, that the map, the piano practice and saxophone time would all fit fine.  (I'd call it saxophone practice but he hasn't had a lesson yet so he's just "doodling".)  It did not.  I postponed dinner until he'd finished it all, but he and I both felt rushed and stressed.

Fall baseball has started too, fortunately only on weekends.  I've always tried to keep my kids under scheduled (in comparison to most others we know at least) and right now it does not feel under scheduled.  I'm wondering if it will all fit this year.