One thing I love about this blog is that it is a documentation of our family. I enjoy reading back and remember how things were at that time and how they have changed/or not since then.
So this is what our schedule looks like now with me as a working mom, Tom in the Police Academy, and George being his 6 month self. This is our average day.
- Tom’s alarm goes off some time between 4:15 and 4:30am. He lets the dogs out first thing.
- If George wakes up before 4:45 and cannot be soothed, he ends up sleeping with me either on his floor, his rocker, or our bed. If he wakes up before 3:30am, I can usually nurse him for a couple minutes and put him back down in his crib.
- If he wakes up between 4:45 and 5:20, I wake up and nurse him. Then I just stay awake and start our day.
- If he is an angel child, I have to wake him up when my alarm goes off at 5:20. Or at 5:30 after hitting the snooze. I will then nurse him, change his diaper and clothes.
- Tom leaves around 5:15am for PT.
- After George is ready for the day, I bring the play mat into the bathroom and put George there on the bathroom floor while I hop on the shower. This is always interesting because he is most alert in the morning and loves to babble. So we talk through the shower curtain. At first I was concerned about the dogs messing with him while I was in the shower. But who am I kidding they are divas and crawl back under the blankets while I shower.
- Around 6am, we have breakfast. George is first with some rice cereal mixed with some other puree. Then I have cereal while he plays on the kick and play. I also use this time to catch up on Instagram.
- At 6:45, I put George on a blanket next to the bathroom doorway and let him play with toys while I put on make-up and dry my hair. He is mesmerized by my hair dryer! This is also when I listen to my daily devotional speeches.
- At 7:00, I let the dogs out one last time while I load up the car with every bag imaginable.
- At 7:15, I brush my teeth while holding George because he has started his morning nap-time fussiness. I also close all the room doors and do a last check of dog destruction potential.
- By 7:25, George and I are in the car. (Usually I have to circle the neighborhood to make sure I shut the garage door.)
- We hit the babysitter’s house at 7:40.
- At 7:50, I head to CC which is 5 minutes away.
- I walk into my office around 8 am and then do the work thing all day.
- Tom sometimes gets a long lunch to come home to check on the dogs.
- I get off at 5pm. Tom does sometimes. If we both are off at 5, Tom picks up George on Tuesdays/Thursdays. I then pick up G on Monday/Wednesday/Friday. But more often than not, Tom does not get off at 5. Either way, George is picked up around 5:15 every day.
- On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I will go to the gym regardless of if I picked up G or not. The gym childcare ladies love him, so it is a win/win. Seriously they all huddle at the window when they see us walk in and squeal when we come in the door. It’s a great feeling to see him so loved when he is only there a couple hours each week.
- On Mondays and Wednesdays we get home about 5:30. Tuesdays and Thursdays we get home about 6:30.
- Tom usually gets home between 7 and 8 after he gets off and then goes to work out. (which is technically him still working) There are some days like tonight that he won’t get home until after 11pm. Real bummer.
- I feed George some solid food at 6:30.
- Tom then does George’s bath time right when he gets home around 7. If he isn’t home yet, I do the bath charge. But to be honest some days when Tom isn’t home yet, George just gets a “wipes” bath. Especially on the nights where I have an hour worth of dishes to do.
- I take the lead on the first bedtime with jammies, story time, last nursing of the day, and then lights out hopefully around 7:30-7:45.
- We (the adults) finally have dinner at 8:00pm. Lately, we haven’t really been sitting down together to eat just with the way that the schedule has gone. I am hoping once the academy is over we can adjust things so we can sit down formally together again.
- Rarely does George make it past 8:30 with this first bedtime. So we take turns with the wiggle monster depending on what we need to do. This is really the time that we do any household chores, getting ready for the morning, I catch up on the blog, Tom does his homework, and anything else that needs to be done.
- We hardly ever spend this time in the same room “being still” during the week because of things that have to get done that night. (We are sooo ready for the academy to be over to have us time again.) Friday nights however, we do go on our Hy-Vee buffet date night, so we don’t worry about any household chores that night.
- At 9:30pm, Tom gets George’s last bottle ready and then feeds him.
- Around 10pm, Tom puts George down for the final time of the night.
- At the same time, I wash my face and brush my teeth. Then I do one last pumping session before bed. I use this time to do my bible study.
- Around 10:30, sometimes Tom and I will have some time to chat and just be the two of us. Usually we pass out around 10:30 though. It is very seldom that we are awake past 11pm on a weeknight.
The weekends are a lot more fluid, but we do try to keep George’s night time routine the same as much as possible.
There are a few things we do to make things go a little smoother and save ourselves some time.
I still try to pick out George’s and my clothes for the week on Sunday afternoons. I find I spend much less time wondering what the heck we are going to wear when I carve out a half hour on Sunday to lay everything out. It also helps to grab George’s clothes more quickly since he is now practicing to try out for Cirque du Soleil.
I also purchased more pump parts so I am only doing dishes for that 3 nights out of the week which is a huge help! I have a pretty good system now that I set up my computer in front of the sink and catch up on shows while I clean those parts those nights.This makes me feel like washing dishes isn’t so awful with the entertainment distracting me.
Sundays we also do a lot of meal prep for the week so we don’t have to do as much with our limited time during the week. This has been such a saving grace so we don’t have to worry so much about what we are going to eat for lunches and dinners.
I write a majority of my blog posts over the weekend. Having the skeleton done makes it much easier to go in quickly during the week to do some edits. I have a planner with all my ideas written out so I know when I want to post what and can design drafts farther in advance as well.
So there you have it. Our schedule is a little messy right now with very little down time during the week. It’s not ideal, but we are making it work right now with our temporary schedule.
Do you have a crazy schedule? What are your time saving tips?
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