There are few times of year I lament as much as the end of Christmas Break or the end of Summer Break. The kids get to take it a bit easier, relax, rest their minds, and of course, we build in some quality Mommy-Baby time. Well, today is the official end of Christmas Break, and tomorrow begins the dreaded school schedule again.
Our school week is chaotic on a good week, and insane on a messy one. There are a few things I do to make sure that the week runs as smoothly as possible though. Do you organize your laundry on the weekend? Check out my full system here. I do. I have a cubby for each day of the week and an organized, matching outfit goes into each “day” spot so that there is no doubt who is wearing what and when. Want a blue shirt instead of a red one? You should have thought that through as Mommy was doing laundry. Want to wear wacky socks on wacky sock day but didn’t tell Mommy and can’t find them the morning of? Should have thought that one through too. Mornings are stressful enough without additional drama – minimize it like I do. We aren’t perfect, but boy are my mornings easier now that I do some prepping on the weekend.
Do you kids like to take their lunches to school? Mine do. There is something about Mommy putting together a lunch that my oldest loves. She also loves lunchables, but I just can’t justify the ratio of carbs to protein for a growing girl. There just isn’t enough – and fruit? Forget about it in a packaged lunch. She needs to be properly fueled to develop, grown and learn properly, so I make her lunchables for her. Her favorite is “pizza dippers” which are sort of like the pepperoni ones you get in the store, I use 2 ounce condiment cups and she gets 1 cup each cheese, mini pepperoni, and pizza sauce. The crust is a naan that I have sliced into strips so that she can dip them and then put the toppings on as she likes. Also in her box is an apple (whole, slices, or pouch of sauce – she LOVES apples) and a to go container of black olives. To drink she either has a milk box or juice box – no sugar added, no sodas, etc. These are great for her, she eats them all, and there are no fights about nutrition. The down side is that it would take an insane amount of time to package all of that up each morning. Catch my full lunch prep post here. So, I do it once a week with barely more time to package 5 lunches than it would take to get out my supplies, package, and clean up my supplies each morning – who has time for that? I guarantee you even Martha Stewart wasn’t down with that.
The final part of the break time schedule that I am going to miss is the lack of a rigid schedule. During school weeks, our schedule is relatively fixed. We have to be up by 6:00 to make it out the door by 7:00 and to school by 8:00. There is very little wiggle room in those times, our commute alone is almost an hour. I love waking up, having a cup of coffee under cover of darkness in my pjs before Teeny realizes I am gone and comes looking for cuddles. I am going to miss those leisurely morning cuddles during my second cup of coffee by light of the Christmas tree, and most of all, I am going to miss the flexibility that will be relegated only to weekends until summer. Oh well, at least we have the weekends!
What do you do to streamline your life during the school year?
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Its always a struggle this time of year, I don’t know if I should be sad or over or sing “its the most wonderful time of the year because the kids are back in school” Happy New Year!
I know what you mean. They drive me crazy when they are home together, but I have missed them like crazy today with them back and school and me back to work!
I have a love-hate relationship with the end of break. My kiddos are always ready to be back with their friends and back to more structure, whether they realize it or not. During the school year I try to keep their extracurriculars limited, so they have enough time for not only homework, but also free play!
It is so hard to keep them from getting over structured and burned out. I do the same thing with scheduling. It hit me last summer that I have already had my daughter for 1/2 of her childhood summers and it hit home.