The problem for the weekends in general is the lack of structure.

I’ve mentioned this before – the Monster works better with a concrete structure in his life rather than the disorder of a weekend.  So during the school week, he has things he can do and then only a few hours of unorganized time, but then Saturday comes around and everything’s left open.

This is complicated further by the fact that, at this time of year, we’re dealing with the two of us parents having our personal involvements coming into the matter.  The wife’s in the midst of rehearsals for the Purim spiel at synagogue, and I had a Torah reading and gabbai duties there yesterday, plus my ice-maintenance duties at the curling club today.

So he’s dealing with a lack of concrete structure around the house, coupled with the pair of us running in and out and swapping responsibility for children.

Yesterday seemed alright, once we just accepted that it was his time to play – he did ask (a lot) for snacks, and we kind of dealt with it.  Today’s been more difficult since homework also had to be done.  I came home to find that some of it was finished, but he wasn’t anywhere near done and there was lunch to be dealt with, the baby waking up…

The fault for this is obviously on us, since we’re the ones who can govern his schedule and we’re failing miserably.  We’re just going to have to figure out how to better organize his day so that he has less leeway to be freaking out…