Time For Moms

By Rebecca White

7 am Hubby is out the door time to get the kids ready for school, pack lunches, and make sure everyone has everything they need for school.

8:30 am Kids are out the door and on the school bus; about 20 minutes later get a phone call from Kyle that he forgot his homework

9 am 2-year-old wakes up.

9:15-10:15 AM Feed 2 year old, clean the kitchen, put in one load of laundry while running back and forth to check my emails, call a client, check emails, while already feeling like I lost my head somewhere. Have you seen it?

10:15-11:15 am Work on networking while trying to get my son to stop throwing things out the window, all the while listening to the cat meowing because my oldest took him outside the day before.  Looking all over my desk for that phone number I was suppose to call about the product I needed.  I know I wrote it down somewhere.

11:30-1:00 pm Forget to eat lunch for myself because I am too busy cleaning up after my son's lunch, finish cleaning my floors, remember I forgot to call a client and am about 5 minutes over due for the phone call. Post a few advertisements, read a few posts, make a couple phone calls.

1:30-2:30 pm Struggle with son to take a nap I now only have an 1 hour before the evening rush starts, getting stressed because I now have to do some articles and phone calls and the older boys will be home wanting dinner, which reminds me I need to figure out what to fix! Make a mad dash to the kitchen throw my hands up in the air because I have no idea what to fix, hubby is diabetic and I need to have dinner on the table by 5pm.

3:00 pm I hear a crash from the living room where my 2 year old is suppose to be asleep, go see that he has dumped over my TV trays and is laughing as he is chasing his cat around the room with bubble soaps, as I am chasing him and the cat…I fall down

3:50 pm I hear the bus pull up, oh no I forgot to put something in oven for dinner, another mad dash to the kitchen…kids come in to tell me their day and to remind me they have soccer practice in 30 minutes and I didn't get the socks dried I run down to the basement, slip on the spilled cat litter and almost bust my butt run to the dryer hit the start button, then run back up the stairs jump over the spilled cat litter reminding myself to pick it up later.

4:30-6:00 pm Take the kids to karate and soccer, wish I could take this time to use for myself but decide to do the bills instead, decide to pick up dinner from McDonald's once a week is ok, alright you got me try 3 times a week.  Eat dinner, make a few phone calls, check emails.

7:00-9:00 pm Homework time, clean up time, decide if I want to go take a bath, decide no I don’t have the time to do this will try to do it after the kids go to bed.  Where is hubby you may be asking?  He ate dinner and took a nice hour bath and is now watching Monday night football or if it is hockey season Red Wings Hockey, listening to me yell that I am about ready to explode please help me.

10:00 pm  The older 2 boys are asleep and I am starting to realize that my kitchen still has dishes in the sink; the floor is a mess from older sons tracking in the mud after soccer practice.

10:05-11:05 pm Fight with 2 year old to go to bed he decides this is the night that he will not go to bed no matter what mom does, moms is going to explode, again where is hubby in his room watching American Chopper.

Midnight  2 yr old is asleep finally I can sit down and relax, wait I can't do that I still need to get the orders filled, the last bit of the dishes done and now guess what hubby decides he will make an appearance, for what you may be asking? take a guess.

I have decided that's it, I've had it I can not get anything else done and go to bed vowing that the next day will not be like today.  So I go through the kitchen mad because I still see dishes in the sink, I feel like all I did today was take care of everyone else, I feel spent, worn out and wondering why I try to be super mom!

Ok now that may seem to be a little exaggerated, but how many have you saw yourself in that schedule?  This is a true day schedule for me when I am not organized!

Now I let you know this there are days where I am still not organized, but I am not perfect and as far as I'm concerned nobody should be completely organized, but you need to be somewhat organized when you work from home, let's face it even if you don't work from home you have a totally different schedule that needs to be worked upon.

So here is how it works in my house now that I am more organized:

#1 So I don't miss any numbers or contact information (by the way it took my computer crashing to teach me this lesson LOL) I went to Wal-Mart and bought me a rolodex to hold all WAHP's information that I deal with everyday so that if I find someone who needs a service or a product that I don't work with I can have it right at my fingertips.

#2 The Night before I know what I need to do the next morning, work wise and home wise, I have it planned out.  Of course you have to expect changes to your schedule so make sure you don’t schedule it too tight.

Times that are just for me will be in pink

6 am Get up early so I can watch the morning news while enjoying my first cup of coffee.

6:30 am Wake up hubby, lunch was made the night before so I am not rushing to pack it.

7 am See hubby out the door, kids lunches were made the night before as well as clothes laid out and all papers and bags are packed for the day.

7:30 am Get kids up for school, they already know what they are wearing to school so no asking me where this is etc.

The next hour runs smoothly, I can do some laundry because everything is already done and the kids are eating breakfast, no fights no stress this early in the morning.

8:30 am The kids are on the bus, I have had time to talk to them about the day and send them off with a good attitude I am not feeling pressure already and passing that on to them.

I have about 30 minutes before my 2 year old wakes up so I go into the kitchen and look through my freezer and cookbooks to find a recipe to put into the crock-pot.

I bought a wonderful cookbook called "Munchkin Menus" from Shelly Howard a couple weeks ago and let me tell you it has some wonderful recipes in there for both the crock pot and meals to make under 30 minutes!  What a time saver!  If you are interested in purchasing her cookbook to save you time and frustration go to her website at http://www.munchinmenus.com and take a look around.

9:00 am Adam is still sleeping so I take this chance to sit at my computer to check emails, if nothing needs to be taken care of right away I go to my date book and see all the things I have planned for my day.

I then go about picking up my house for about 15 minutes, I have to give credit for this to http://www.Flylady.net for all those who have a hard time being organized her site is a wonderful tool to get yourself on track and get used to doing things in “baby steps” they will send you reminders to do things throughout your day and each task only takes about 15 minutes but well worth it.

10:00-Noon I work on my networking, my emails and any phone calls to clients I have scheduled. Adam has had breakfast and is watching me work and playing on his toy computer.

Noon I take a break, I go fix lunch, sit down with Adam and enjoy eating lunch, then I clean up from lunch right then, I have a soap dispenser that has a sponge on the end of it so instead of placing a dirty dish in the sink I just clean it then, I do this every time I dirty a dish so no more worries about a sink full of dirty dishes.

1:00 pm  Adam and I relax and watch a little TV together or play with his toys, if the phone rings, I try not to answer it, the machine will get it.

1:30 pm Time to check my emails again and post a little on my networking groups

2:00 pm Nap time for Adam, of course with any child you know they will not want to go to sleep when you do, so for the sake of an argument here let’s pretend he does go to sleep.

2:30 pm I now have an hour to myself, the older boys and hubby will be home in about an hour.  I take the next 30 minutes and do something I have wanted to do, if I am tired I go lay down and set the alarm for 30 minutes, I may not sleep but my body feels better after laying down for that little bit.

3:00 pm I now can have 45 minutes to work, again I check emails etc.

3:45pm  Kids will be home in 15 minutes I walk away from the computer check on dinner in the crock-pot and start getting together the bags for after school activities.  Since I already have these together with clean clothes from the last game (I washed them right away and had Kyle put them right into his soccer bag) it only takes a couple minutes.

4:00 pm The kids are off the bus and coming in the house telling me all about their day and of course competing with each other on who’s day was better.  The normal complaints of my stomach is empty when is dinner is heard, but no worries dinner is in the crock-pot and ready to be eaten all we are doing is waiting on dad to come home.

The kids take their folders out of their bags and place the items I need to look at in their in boxes I made up for them.  So when I have time after all the after school activities I can read over them and place them back in the boxes for them to place in their bags before bedtime.

5:00pm Hubby is home and we are setting the table for dinner, we all sit down I am not stressed because I am caught up on my work and can enjoy the night.

5:30 pm-7:00 pm Time to leave for soccer practice, Kyle was dressed and ready to go before we sat down for dinner, I take him to practice and dad will pick him up so I can use that time to clean the dinner dishes up and check emails.

7:00 pm Homework time, I make lunches and do little odds and ends while they are working on their homework so that I can help them if they need it.  This is the time I fold laundry or read over the papers they put in their in boxes.

8:00 pm Time to get ready for bed for the kiddos

8:30 pm I take a warm bath or shower, or just take this 30 minutes to read in my current book, or get my basket that I made and do something in there that I want to do, I set the timer so I only take the 30 minutes.

9:00 pm Theoretically the older boys are in bed and their bags are ready for the next day.

9:30 till about 10:30 I check more emails, plan for the next day by looking at my calendar and seeing what is going on that day.

10:30 pm I now am done for the day, kitchen is clean, I have done a few loads of laundry and put them away as soon as I folded them (this is my biggest weakness, to let the clean laundry sit)

11:00 pm Mom and dad time

Midnight  Yes I am still awake but I am not working I am doing what I want to do believe it or not watching The Nanny on lifetime.  If I was tired I would go to bed, if not I watch my show…I just love to have a good laugh before I go to bed.

12:30 pm I go to bed feeling great because things got done and there is nothing weighing on my mind.

I will say this is not everyday you have to allow for mix-ups, unplanned events etc but I was able to take a couple of breaks for me and still get everything done I had set out for that day.

It also helps if you have older kids and I am including my husband in this one, to make out a chore list or a schedule with what will be happening each day so they can look for themselves and not come bugging you about what is coming up.

Again that will take time, I still have to tell them I have the schedule on the wall by the computer desk for this week, go look, but now I am more organized and can just tell them to go look.

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