cryogen wrote: ↑4 years ago
My wife stays at home and watches our 2yo normally, so we are fortunate in that regards. But now the 12yo is doing the whole school from home thing, so it's an additional challenge keeping the younger one away during the elder's online schooling. I can't imagine what you're going through MZD, two is plenty for me. And that's with one old enough to entertain herself and help with the younger!
Our 8y/o homeschools taught by my wife, and the 3y/o and 2y/o are underfoot the whole time, so I totally get the schooling challenge with little ones interfering. We love 'em to pieces and both my wife and I always wanted 3+ kids, so we're not unhappy with the situation by any means. It's just a LOT, especially when we're all stuck home. Really the only change is that I'm not going to work and our 14y/o is not going to school, so there are more bodies and less space at home.
ISBPathfinder wrote: ↑4 years ago
My wife and I talked about this and I don't think we want to play a zone defense with kids. I think two is our max.
Fair point. The real secret, no matter how many kids you have, is leveraging what you have available to create healthy boundaries. Unfortunately, too many parents do this the unhealthy way with mass amounts of screen time (we're so guilty of this sometimes) to keep the kids busy and catch a break. The better way to do it is with projects that interest them, outdoors time (fenced in backyard and a park nearby are lifesavers), and divide and conquer tactics. Our 8y/o is the hyper extrovert plopped in the middle of our family full of introverts, and he drains us all so quickly with his energy, *cooooooooonstant* talking, and short attention span. He's quite literally incapable of remaining silent for longer than 20 seconds, through no fault of his own. He's a great kid, but if we don't get him busy with something, playing outside, or isolated with one parent and not the other on a regular basis, we'd all go insane. Fortunately, I started teaching him pauper cube around Thanksgiving and got him a commander deck for Christmas, and the bug has bitten him big time, so I can give his mom a big break by pulling him downstairs for a chunk of time to do a grid draft or jam some EDH