Today’s post is a brief snapshot of our morning routine. I have spoken before about my morning routine, but as each year brings changes to who goes where and when, it is pretty dynamic and does look different now to what it did last year for me especially.
Feedback from the survey in December highlighted that you were interested in reading more about the day to day stuff not only from me but from other families. So while it is our morning routine today, Katie a mum to 8 kids is sharing her morning routine tomorrow. Katie, kindly shared some of her family story on the blog last year – Our Big Family Story. This post resonated so well with readers and I know her post tomorrow will too.
I will share more stories from other families through out the year as well. These stories are handed over to me in the spirit of sharing and they are not about saying any particular style of parenting is better than the other, nor any family set up is better than another. They are about appreciating diversity and it is up to us what we want to take away and act on. Personally these posts always make me reflect on what I am doing and how could I do better in my role as parent.
Our Morning Routine
As most of you will know, there really is no such thing as an “average day” as a parent, but this is what my morning routine looks like most often:
5.40am: Get up and head to the gym. I do this Monday to Friday.
7.00am: Home from gym, greet the kids. A couple usually meet me at the door for a kiss and hug. I have breakfast with those yet to have it. 95% of the time everyone is up by this time.
7.15am: Finish off the lunches. Our year 8 son is responsible for making his own lunch, so we chat together as we do the lunch box thing. Some parents have found this strange that I make the other lunches but not his. We made a family rule that once the kids get to Year 7 (secondary school in Victoria) the kids need to make their own lunches. Eventually the other kids will be in secondary school and so they will need to make their own too – it is a transition process from this being my responsibility.
7.30am: Point out to the younger kids that is 7.30am. This is the time they need to start getting dressed and doing their “morning jobs”. Each child has specific tasks they need to do in the morning. You can see an idea of what they are here – Kids Chores. I help anyone who needs assistance getting ready (tie shoelaces etc) and tidy up the kitchen and dining room area.
7.45am: I have a shower and get dressed myself. The kids pack their bags and finish off getting ready for school, making sure they have all the right things for their day. The kids have their own timetables to refer to help them get organised.
8.05am: A couple of mornings a week I will put on a load of washing before we leave for the walk to school. The kids will get the dog ready for the walk, making sure we have bags for the poop he does every time!
8.10am: We walk to school about 4 mornings a week. The other morning we have a regular appointment, so it doesn’t quite work out for us to walk. On mornings when we are running a little behind, our 11 year old will often walk to school ahead of us. He likes to get to school as early as possible and he has the job of looking after the chickens at school a couple of mornings a week too, so he likes to make sure he has plenty of time for that and playing. A bonus of him liking to be early, is that he is keen to help out however he can to make sure we leave at the right time.
He will come and ask me if there is anything he can do to help. I will often ask him to find the preschoolers shoes and socks. Our 3 year old detests wearing shoes and socks. Often I won’t even bother with the fight of putting them on at home. We take them in the pram and he knows when we get to kinder he has to put them on.
So yes, even when it is freezing you will often see him without shoes or socks on. He has a blanket on him in the pram, so he isn’t freezing though.
8.30am: It takes us about 20 minutes to walk to school. I really love the walks to school. It is such a great time to talk to the kids and I feel I can focus on them better, than when I am driving the car. We can use this time to practice spelling words or times tables, if we had a busy night the night before.
There are also little games that I can play with the preschooler on the way home too.
On mornings when the preschooler has 9.00am starts I will walk the kids to the school gate, kiss them goodbye (not the 11 year old who would be mortified by that!) and turn straight around and walk back to kinder.
9.15am: The kinder our littlest one attends is at the end of our street which is so handy! He has one 9am start, one 9.15am start and attends occasional care one morning a week also from 9am – 12pm at a different place. He is happy to go each time, so drop off is pretty quick and I head straight home.
10.00am: Work! The days the 3 year old is in kinder are my “work days”. I aim to do a couple of quick things around the house – hang out the washing, clean the toilets, or prepare a quick meal etc and then go upstairs to my office. I have a little routine for each day of the week, which I have talked about before here, but I really try to make sure I am working by 10am.
11.55am: I will work until the very last minute before I need to pick up the little one from kinder. On kinder days, this means I only need to leave 5 minutes before he finishes, so I can quite a bit of work done.
And that is pretty much what my mornings look like! Do you have a morning routine you follow?