Figuring it out

I think I'm starting to get in the groove with this whole school year thing. The key, for me, is to do as much preparation the night before as possible. If I can pack Brandon's snack and make the boys bowls of fruit and have Brandon pick out his outfit the night before school, I am infinitely less hurried feeling in the morning. Even if that stuff only takes me 10 or 15 minutes to do the night before, it just makes me feel like the morning is smoother. Which results in the boys NOT having a crazy mommy screaming, "We have to brush your teeth right now or you are going to miss the bus!" or "you have only 2 minutes left to eat breakfast, so stop talking and eat!" Yes, much more relaxed this way.

Plus, I am trying to take advantage of the fact that we are out so early (well, at least as compared to summer hours). Monday, Parker and I got Brandon on the bus and then immediately got in the car to go to the grocery. We were back home by 9:10am... still plenty early to meet Sheri-Lynne at the park for a playdate! Much, much better than dragging both boys to the grocery in afternoon. This morning, after Brandon got on the bus, I immediately came in and cleaned all the bathrooms so that my cleaning for the day was already completely by 9am. So, now I can have time to do stuff this afternoon like update this blog. Parker is so good about playing trains in his room while I do a little bit of cleaning, too... I think he likes having all the toys to himself for a little while.

I've also decided that for my two free mornings a week, I will spend one of them working out and one of them taking care of stuff around the house and reading. I was working out for both of them, but I decided that I'd rather get up at 5:30am and ride my bike in the dark if it means being able to have a couple hours in a quiet house later in the morning.

So, yes, I'm feeling like it's all coming together, and we are figuring out how to make this house run smoothly again for the school year. I am obsessively organized and compulsive about getting a million things done a day, so I needed to figure out a new structure and routine that works for our new year! I feel more relaxed already.

Had to suck it up and join the local gym to swim indoors. The school I was swimming at last spring no longer has open lap hours, so literally the only place to swim around here is a health club. It stinks to be paying a monthly fee just to swim once or maybe twice a week. Such is life. Got my big half-marathon this weekend, and I'm pretty pumped for it.