Simply Real Moms: Meet Lydia
I’m excited to present our second week of Simply Real Moms. I have a nice group of moms (and the group is growing!) who have agreed to share a little bit about their schedules, tips, tricks and organizational systems that help their lives run smoother. Each Monday, for 9 weeks or so, I’ll feature one new mom. If you want to read old Simply Real Mom posts just click on the “Simply Real Moms” category in my side bar.
*If you’re interested in being featured, give me a holler! E-mail me (look to your right for an email link) or indicate your interest in the comment section.
So, here we go. Mom number two.
Meet….Lydia!!
……Who happens to be my cousin. We’ve been close since…well… we were born. She blogs at Lid And The Kids and has two handsome boys.
I’ll let her tell the rest….
****
My name is Lydia and I am actually Melissa’s cousin. Oh the stories I could share… But I will stick to the topic at hand, specifically schedules and what my typical day looks like. First a little about me. I have 2 boys, Garrett is 5 and Cooper is 1 (he’ll be 2 next month). I stay at home with them, with the exception of a very part-time job I have working at our church. I work from home about 5 hours a week and work in the office about 5 hours a week. My boys go to our church’s MDO (Mother’s Day Out) 2 days a week, so that gives me my time to get my work in, plus I’m able to have a few hours to go to appointments or run errands kid-free. It’s very nice (and if your child isn’t attending MDO, you should definitely check to see if something similar is available in your area.)
I’m very big into schedules. I like to have specific times that we do things so that I know what our day is going to look like and also my boys know what to expect next. When they were newborns and infants, I was much stricter with the schedule. Otherwise time would get away from me and I would forget when the next feeding was or what time they needed to go down for a nap. Now that they’re a little older, I don’t feel quite so dictated by my schedule, but I still keep one because it helps to get through the day.
7:00am-My boys typically wake up around this time. There are mornings where they get up around 6am (I curse those mornings!) and there are a handful of mornings where they sleep until 8am, but those are very unfortunately few and far between.
I always lay their clothes out the night before, so Garrett immediately gets up and gets himself dressed. Depending on who gets Cooper up, we already know what he’s wearing so he is dressed when we change his first diaper. I may still be in my pj’s but atleast the boys look halfway put together!
After getting dressed, it’s breakfast time and then I let them watch cartoons. ”Wild Kratts” and “Curious George” are on after our normal breakfast time and these are big favorites in our house, so while the boys watch these shows, I typically eat my own breakfast, get dressed, and get on the computer to check emails, Facebook, read blogs, etc. I try to limit that time because I could stay online all day if I’m not careful.
9:30am-If we have any errands to run, this is when we do them. On Mondays, I go grocery shopping during this time frame. Days without errands or grocery shopping: Garrett goes to his room to clean (if it’s messy) or to play and if the weather is nice, he will also play outside. Cooper either plays in his own room or in the living room (we don’t have a playroom). This is when I do some of my work. After I’m done with my work, I get some cleaning done.
I don’t enjoy cleaning, but I dislike my house being messy even more, so I try to do a little cleaning each day to keep the house from being a complete disaster. It’s very far from being super clean, but I try to keep the toy mess in the boys’ rooms as much as possible, along with keeping the kitchen picked up and the floor swept. Those 3 things may be the only things that I get done on any given day and if that’s the case, then I’m happy. I’m also assigning more and more jobs to Garrett, which is really nice. So we spend some of this morning cleaning time learning new jobs too.
11:00am-Lunch time. Since the boys get up so early, they’re usually ready to eat by this time. “Sesame Street” comes on at 11am, so we watch that while we eat. Correction, the boys watch that while they eat and I read while I eat. It gives me a good chance to get in some reading while everyone is occupied.
12:30pm-Nap time/Rest time. Cooper goes down for his nap. Occasionally I will have Garrett lay in his bed and read for an hour during this time, depending on his attitude and how well he hasbeen sleeping. Otherwise, this is when he’s allowed to play Wii. He loves Wii and would play it all day long if I let him, but I limit him to this time period. The positive is it gives him something fairly quiet to do while Cooper is napping and it’s more interactive than the average video game. What I do during this time really varies. Sometimes I’ll lay down and take a nap myself if I’m really tired. Other days I will get on the treadmill and walk for half an hour (those days don’t happen near as often as they should!). I may do some cleaning or folding laundry or working. And still other days I will catch up on shows I’ve missed. A lot of it depends on what I’ve gotten done that morning and what really needs to be done.
3:00pm-Snack time. Cooper typically sleeps 2-2.5 hours, so once he’s up, then we have snacks. After snack time, we all go outside to play if the weather is nice.
5:00pm-Begin dinner prep. I’m very much a proponent of cooking with the crock-pot when you have small children. It is seriously a lifesaver. If I’ve had chicken or ribs or whatever cooking in the crock-pot all day, then all I have to do for prep is to make a pan of rice or stick some potatoes in the microwave, heat up a veggie for the side, and supper is ready in 20 minutes or so. While I’m in the kitchen, I typically make the boys clean-up any toys that have migrated into the living room since earlier in the morning.
After we eat dinner (almost always it’s just the 3 of us. My husband works long hours. He’s typically gone for work around 7:30am and isn’t home until 7:30pm or 8:00pm, so all 4 of us eating dinner together doesn’t happen during the week), I will do a quick clean up of the table and then the boys and I will play something before bathtime. Sometimes we’ll play something like Trouble (Cooper just thinks he’s playing of course…) and other times we’ll just roll a car or ball back and forth. I also will try to play Wii with Garrett periodically. At this point, playing Wii with him is his love language (as crazy as that may sound). He loves to share that time with us and “teach” us how to play something. Cooper “plays” along with a controller that isn’t turned on.
7:00pm-Bathtime. While the boys are in the tub, I use this time to clean the bathroom. Of course I don’t do that every night, but once a week, I use bathtime for bathroom cleaning. I’m right there watching them, but I’m also getting my bathroom clean. On other nights, I’ll bring my iPod Touch into the bathroom and do some Facebooking.
After bathtime and pj’s, the boys will have a small bedtime snack. If possible, I try to keep them up so they can see Keith before they go to bed.
8:00pm-Bedtime. If they don’t have school the next day and if Keith didn’t get home until a little later, then I will push this back. But on school days or the rare night that Keith gets home early, 8:00pm is their bedtime. Cooper goes down first and by the time we do all the bedtime rituals that Garrett wants, then he’s usually in bed about 15 minutes later.
After bedtime, I do a quick clean-up in the kitchen from supper and then the rest of the evening is spent on the computer and watching TV. I must say I really enjoy that time of winding down and mindless entertainment. I typically try to read for a little bit in bed before going to sleep. I am an avid reader but our schedule doesn’t typically allow for a lot of reading time for me, so I get it in where I can.
A few brief organization ideas: In order to get us out the door quickly, I keep all of our current season shoes in a basket in the laundry room (which is right next to our garage door). This way we aren’t scrambling all over the house looking for shoes when we need to be leaving.
I also keep a bag packed in the car for both of the boys. Each bag has a change of clothes and few non-perishable snacks. Of course Cooper’s also has diapers and wipes since it’s technically his diaper bag, but I don’t ever bring it in the house unless I’m repacking it.
At different points I’ve tried having a cleaning schedule, but it’s never really worked out like I would hope. I typically do all of my deep cleaning either on Tuesdays when the boys are at MDO or on Saturdays when Keith is home and can help out. I know how hard it is to do all of the major cleaning with 2 kids underfoot.
I usually do all of our laundry in one day. As each load comes out of the dryer, I put the clean clothes in a pile on my bed. I pull out any clothes that will get majorly wrinkled sitting there and lay them flat on the bed. When all of the clothes are clean, I get the boys to help me fold. Cooper doesn’t help much, though he will take folded towels to the bathroom and put them on the counter when I ask. But Garrett will match socks and fold towels. Then we put everything up at the same time and the job is done for the week. It’s a little time consuming but I’m terrible about putting clothes away once they’re dry, so this is a good motivator to getting that job done and I only have to do it once a week.
My last tip, for what it’s worth, is to use baskets and boxes and basically any cute, decorative container to help keep your clutter looking nice, if all else fails! We have a bowl plus a cute paper sorter on our kitchen counter for all the odds and ends plus bills. We have a nice basket in the living room next the TV for Wii paraphernalia. I keep a variety of containers on the bathroom counters for catch-alls and the boys have many small baskets in their rooms to help sort out different types of toys. Blocks in 1, cars in another, etc. It’s not a big thing, but it does help. With the toys, I have to go in periodically and reorganize everything because of course they don’t all stay where they should go, but at least they’re occasionally organized.
Moms have a tough time raising their kids along with keeping house, so I think whatever works for each person is what they should be doing! These are just some of the things that I do. They don’t happen 100% of the time, but they are what I strive towards.
Thanks for reading through all of this, if you made it thus far. In case you couldn’t tell, I have a tendency to be a tad wordy…
