SQUIRT time

Shhh, can you hear — the silence? Actually it isn't silent, just let me go and fix that . . .

(sounds of Mum laying down the law)

Ah, that's better.

You may have wondered what SQUIRT time is. It is the silence that keeps us sane on days that our boys are home all day. And that includes the 75 days of summer holidays.

S super/special
Q quiet
U uninterrupted
I individual
R reading
T time

So it really ought to be SQUIR time or just SQUIRT, but anyway, sometimes we say, "we're squirting now".

It is rest/reading time on beds, usually straight after lunch. Or, as someone else calls it "BOB: bottoms on beds".

I like this acronym because it sounds so fun, much better than rest or reading time. Particularly "rest". No boy (at least none of mine) likes that term unless they have been climbing a mountain for ages. My boys like reading, but still it is often hard for them to withdraw from the craziness that develops between them all, to just read. If everyone is doing it, then there is no one to distract them.

By the way, I can't claim to have invented the acronym, I discovered it in a homeschooling book a few years back. Now, my boys have even been heard to exclaim, "Yay, SQUIRT time!" Amazing!

We especially enforce it on Sunday afternoons and during long holidays like we have at present. It's getting better and better as they get older, especially now our seven year old can read for longer periods on his own. Truly, SQUIRT time is one of our survival techniques. Three boys are exhausting.

Usually I try to take some lie down-reading time myself, but this week it has been one of the few times I could get some uninterrupted working time. And not only has this been a busy week with the boys all home (and David at work), but I've had a lot of email action happening. Mostly related to the upcoming issue of the Japan Harvest magazine, which is in the design phase right now. I've read 100 emails related to the magazine since I got up on Monday morning and written about 75 (these weren't all magazine related), in addition to a few other things (like writing this blog, for example). Life has been busy this week.

I'm really looking forward to going camping on Monday for four days: no internet access and no computer. It will be very refreshing. I think we'll be enforcing SQUIRT time there too, it is a great excuse to go and chill out with a book.