When you have really small children, your schedule is constantly changing with every changing sleep habit and expanding development of the kids. I feel like we've gotten into a pretty good routine for the last little while, so today I wanted to share what that typical daily routine looks like.
Just a disclaimer: You'll notice me using words like usually, typically, most days, sometimes... etc- because nothing is ever in concrete with kids. :)
Here we go!
7:30 am- All three of us (the kids and me) are typically awake by this point (Marty is pretty much always up by more like 6:00 am). Sometimes Carolyn is up and going closer to 6:30 am, and sometimes Peter will sleep until a little past 8:00 am, but we'll just use 7:30 for the sake of this schedule.
Immediately after Peter wakes up we do breakfast. He wakes up and is ready to eat PRONTO. This might be french toast, "protein" pancakes, or just cold cereal and some fruit. During breakfast I'll read a few verses of scripture to the kids (I started doing this after my lesson last month), and Peter loves it. Whenever I stop reading he asks for "more scriptures". How darling is that?
Usually the kids take longer than I do to eat, so while they are still strapped into chairs eating, I take the time to unload the dishwasher or tidy up the kitchen if I didn't do it the night before. This is also when I'll typically throw a load of clothes in the washing machine.
After breakfast I get everyone dressed for the day, and by the time we're all dressed and ready it's usually 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning.
This is our "morning free time". Sometimes we'll play inside, but lately we've been spending tons of time outside. We have some toy cars and tricycles, and we'll walk around our cul-de-sac in those. It's like a tiny, slow, toddler parade. Other days (like today), I'll put the kids in the double stroller and we'll walk down the street to a nearby park. Still other days we'll go somewhere fun like the aquarium or run an errand. Whatever it is we are doing here, we typically have about and hour and a half window to do something fun before one of them needs food or sleep.
Around 11:30 am I'll feed them either a snack or lunch, depending on how hungry they are, and right around 12:00 pm they both go down for naps. [woo hoo!] I've just started stretching Carolyn out to only one nap, so she often has to go down at 11:00 or 11:30, and then I have Peter help me put away any toys, and we'll spend a few minutes together before he goes down at noon.
During nap time I will typically eat my lunch, and enjoy the bliss of eating with no kids around. After I eat, I'll usually do computer work- either taking care of things for Marty, or paying bills, or managing our budget (oh shoot, I just remembered that I've got to reconcile our May budget... let me know in the comments if you would want to hear about how we do our budget!). Often times I'll do my scripture study during this time, and/or read a book, or catch up on my favorite blogs or youtube channels. This is just me time. Some days it's productive, and some days it's just me sitting in a chair and enjoying the silence.
Around 2:00 or 2:30 pm they'll both wake up from naps, and we'll do either a snack or lunch here- whichever they didn't eat before nap time. Now that they're both fed and rested, it's time for "afternoon free time"! In the afternoons we are a lot more likely to do things like going to the grocery store. We also do most of our play dates in the afternoon, sometimes at someone else's house, sometimes at ours. These things will typically happen in the 3:30-5:30 pm range. I really try to get out of the house every day. Some days that means just playing outside, but it often means going somewhere else, and typically during this time. It helps us all not to get cabin fever.
After we're done with our "afternoon activities", we have dinner. This is usually pretty light, the kids always seem to have the biggest appetites for lunch (well... that, and I almost always end up giving them snacks during our outings). If I'm making something more complicated for dinner, I like to turn on the screen at this point and let them watch a youtube video while I cook. I really only cook big meals a couple times a week, and then we eat leftovers the other days, or I put dinner in the crock pot earlier in the day.
After dinner we'll do bath time (only every couple of days unless they got nice and dirty that day). Carolyn usually goes down around 6:30 or 7:00 pm, however long I can hold her out, and then Peter will help me tidy up again, and he goes down around 7:30 pm.
Then it's time for the bedtime dance! This is when I take a few minutes to decompress. Seriously, the last couple of hours is always a struggle, especially with Carolyn in that doesn't-need-two-but-needs-more-than-one nap phase that she's in. I feel so exhausted by the time they're both in bed. After I decompress, this is when I do my blogging. By the time I finish my blog and scroll around on the internet for a while, Marty comes home and I get his dinner warmed up for him.
Then it's shower and bedtime for the grown ups. :)
So there you have it, a day in the life of the Cluff family (well, the mom and kids side of it). I've been thinking about writing about what it's like for Marty- what his schedule is like, or what it's like to be married to a small business owner. Let me know in the comments if that would be interesting to you.
If you have small kids, how is your schedule different? Or let me know if you have questions on anything here! I'm sure I left some things out. (Hard to believe with this mile long post though, eh?) :)Labels: Family, Motherhood, Parenting