Morning Madness - Getting The Hell Out Of The Door Every Day

I remember one of the biggest adjustments to parenthood as a first time mom was the simple art of leaving the house.  Before kids, you just got up, did your morning thing, and walked out the door.  When my son was a week old, we had to take him to his Bris for 7am.  I think I experienced real terror on how I was actually going to manage to get out of the house with an infant at that hour... make sure the diaper bag was packed with extra clothes, diapers, wipes, diaper rash cream, etc., do a last minute diaper change, calm the crying baby, quick turn at the boob, put snowsuit on (Oh yes, born January 21st in the dead of winter), take snowsuit off, do another diaper change, put snowsuit back on, stuff crying baby into baby carrier, remember to actually bring diaper bag.... blah, blah, blah.  If you've been there, you know what I mean. 

Nearing the end of my mat leave with Myles, I think I had actual panic attacks thinking about how I was going to get both him and myself up and out the door by 7am every day.  Then add baby #2 to the mix and the anxiety more than doubles.  I've been at it now for 3 years and mornings are still far from fun.  I definitely have my timing down to the minute in order to leave on time, but there isn't a day that I don't end up in a mad rush by the last few minutes.  I don't think I ever leave the house leisurely on a weekday now that I have kids, except on the rare occasion when I'm not doing a drop off.  Those days feel like an absolute luxury.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I wake up at un-Godly hours.  I set my alarm for 5am everyday, but I'm usually out of bed by 4:45am.  I get up, brush teeth & put in contacts while trying to rouse myself, take some vitamins, do my 20-30 minute workout, feed the dog, finish making lunches (I try to do most of it the night before), take a shower, get dressed, etc.  By the time I'm finished all of that, it's usually around 6:30am.  Up until this point, my routine is at a very nice, unfrazzled pace, unless of course one of the kids has woken early.  Then they are usually tagging along and needing something.

Usually it starts with the breakfast demands (or TV demands).  Amazing how they are so absolutely starving and need breakfast NOW, when at other mealtimes, I have to force them to eat.  It doesn't matter if I'm half dressed or not dressed at all... they can't wait another minute! 

And then the fun begins... My daughter wakes up every morning with a rat's nest on her head, so we start with the hair brushing ordeal - brutal.  Out comes the brush and the No More Tangles Spray (thank the lord for that invention).  Once the screaming has settled down, then the dressing game begins.  No matter what I choose, it's the wrong outfit.  And if I ask her to choose, she can literally take an hour.  So there I stand looking at my watch as she's hemming and hawing and I have to remind myself to breathe.  She also has this special trick of wanting to play catch me if you can once the clothes are finally chosen.  Fun.  Not.  My husband tries to have her choose her outfit the night before and does have some success with this strategy.  But she definitely invokes the female prerogative to change her mind! 

The morning madness is taken to an even higher level on those mornings where I actually have to wake my daughter from a dead sleep.  If she's not up by 6:45am, I usually carry her into our bedroom and turn on some cartoons, hoping she'll transition from sleep zombie to TV zombie and won't have any kind of a meltdown.  And did I mention, by 7am coats and boots are being wrestled on?  So all those fun activities take place in a nice 15 minute window.  Because of course, we need to be dressed and leaving by 7am in order to roll out of the driveway by 7:10am.  I still can't figure out how that takes 10 minutes.  But it does, so it has to be calculated in.  Oh, yes, and somewhere in that 15 minute window during the wretched winter months I have to get outside, start the car, and clean off the snow.

Thankfully this past September my son started kindergarten.  So he's now my husband's responsibility in the morning because he doesn't leave for school until long after I've left for work.  Many days he's still asleep when I do the morning madness dash out the door.  But I used to do the morning routine with both of them.  And next September, Charley will start pre-K at Myles' school and I can once again return to just getting me, myself & I out of the house.  I'm counting the days... In the meantime I will try to remember how blessedly wonderful it is to look at her little face and get that warm good-morning hug and kiss.  It does make it all worth it. 

Here are some helpful hints I found for getting out the door in the morning.  I won't say "hints to avoid morning madness entirely" since I haven't quite mastered that.  If you have, please fill me in!

From "Hub Pages"

From "eHow"

From "Pick The Brain"

From "Associated Content"

From "WorknWomen"

Spur Of The Moment Joys - A Great Addition To Everyday Life

Do you remember when you were a kid and life was full of spur of the moment ideas?  Some of my greatest joys growing up were playing with friends in the neighbourhood where we made up games and went on "explorations", we took unexpected trips to the corner store for a treat, rode our bikes wild, and as I got a bit older, we took some unplanned but fun-filled road trips.  These spur of the moment joys were just about anything where I simply followed my heart, went with the flow and fulfilled a sudden desire. Oh, the carefree days of youth!  I'm feeling nostalgic just thinking about it.

These spur of the moment joys seem to fade as we get older.  Life gets busier, priorities are set, routines are in place... everything is planned.  Well, OK, I'll speak for myself as a major planner in life.  But funny enough, I'm also a spur of the moment kind of a gal and I really don't want to lose this trait - even though I seem to use it less and less. 

Yesterday I was feeling frustrated after a weekend of not really knowing what to do and not doing much.  Although we had a great time with all our family in town, I didn't feel like we really did anything.  Our outings seemed to revolve solely around food - we had everyone over for dinner, we went out for lunch, we walked around the indoor market (which also meant we ate our way around the indoor market), we went out for dinner... you see the theme?  I'm at least happy to say that my husband somehow managed to get the kids outside on Sunday for an hour (after some kicking and screaming) - kudos to him.  But these winter weekends have been starting to bore us and it's been getting me down - we were in a rut.   

So when I got into work yesterday I sat down at my computer and booked a night in a hotel for this coming Saturday night.  Just like that.  I chose a hotel in Ottawa (about a 2 hour drive from home) that has a big salt water pool and a 2-storey water slide.  We've been hearing about the great children's museums in Ottawa, as well as how much fun skating is on the Rideau Canal (the world's largest outdoor skating rink).  I called my husband and told him what I had done and he couldn't have been more thrilled.  Can't wait until Saturday!  

We've never really done anything like this - our trips are always planned well in advance.  I have lots of friends who take these mini trips with their kids and they always sound great, however, we've just never done it.  It's not like I don't have initiative in life, so I'm not really sure why I haven't.  Before I was married and had kids, I used to take those weekend getaways, go out for last minute happy hour get-togethers, an impulsive hike up a mountain to see the sun set, or a walk on the beach after work...  (I was lucky enough to spend some years in Arizona and Vancouver before meeting my husband and moving to Montreal).  If I had to guess why I now do less spur of the moment things, I would say that it's simply outside of my regular routine.  And with a family, it's so much easier to get entrenched in that routine.

I'm really excited about going and spending this fun time with the family, but even more so to see my kids have a blast.  It's so important to me to create wonderful memories for them of their childhood - I would hate for them to think back one day and feel like they never really did fun things with their parents.  I feel this quick trip is a great pick-me-up for all of us, it's a great break from our regular routine, it isn't costing us a lot of money (we got a great deal on the hotel room because we booked last minute) and it's something to look forward to all week.  Although my husband and I did sit in bed last night and plan everything we wanted to do once we got there LOL.  Can't take the plan completely out of the planner!

I think booking this last minute get-away is more than just going away this one weekend and having fun.  It's re-ignited in me the lost passion of my childhood in finding spur of the moment joys in life.  It's a reminder that I have to do this more often.  It doesn't always have to be something big like a road trip, rather, it can be adding smaller spur of the moment joys into my everyday life too.  Whether it's taking the kids for ice cream on a warm summer night, playing a board game instead of watching TV, calling an old friend I haven't spoken to in a while, baking chocolate chip cookies just for the heck of it (i.e. not for the school bake sale the next day)... whatever it may be, I just need to do it (I'm really on board with the Nike campaign lately).  Your spur of the moment joys may differ than mine (i.e. you may think baking cookies is a chore, not a joy!).  But please take this as your reminder too... just get up and do it too - whatever it is!

Here are a few memories of some of my spur of the moment joys:

1.  A last minute trip to Arizona to see friends and family for my 40th b-day (thanks to my hubby who sent me with my then 1 1/2 year old daughter!) - it was a fabulous way to spend a big birthday.

2. A family photo shoot in the park - something I always wanted to do and finally booked spur of the moment.  We had 4 generations, including the dog, present for the afternoon.  The pictures we took that day were beautiful and I will cherish them for years to come (and hopefully my kids will too one day!).

3.  My kid's first trip to an amusement park last summer (Canada's Wonderland).  I used to love going on rides so it was super fun doing so again (I felt like a really big kid, especially on the kid rides).  It was also great seeing the joy in my kids as they experienced their first rides.

The Art of "Making Time"

You know that working mom who has a stellar career, still takes her kids to all their activities, has time to go to the salon and look all put together, cook nutritious & delicious meals for the family (probably organic too), bake for the bake sales, read, do puzzles, arts & crafts, etc. with their kids regularly, run all the errands for the house, throw fabulous parties, etc. etc. You know her???  No, me neither.  The reality is, despite all of us having the same number hours in a day, some of us are just able do so much more with our time.  So how do we do that?  How do we make the most of our days/nights?

I certainly don't have the magic answer (trust me, if  did, I'd probably be a millionaire by now), but I do know one thing is true - the more we do, the more we can do.  You know that old saying:  If you  need something done, give it to a busy person?  I remember when I was going on my first maternity leave and I thought, Wow, a whole year not working, what will I do with all that time?  Well, my days still flew by (so did the mat leave, actually).  Then near the end of that mat leave, I was having major anxiety on how I was going to continue doing what I was doing, work full time, get to/from day care on time, still have a life, etc.  Well, somehow you manage.  And then after the second child you think, 2 of them - yikes!  But again, you still somehow manage.

I think the only way to even try and tackle it all is to plan, plan, plan.  Combine that with a huge dose of initiative, and you may just have as close as you'll get to a magic recipe.  This can be particularly difficult for some who were never planners (as you know from earlier, I'm absolutely a planner, but my husband so not).  It's something that may take a little getting used to, but it's really the only way.  I plan what I need for the house for the week, I plan exercise time, meal time, pick ups/drop offs, my work day, time with friends, and of course, date night.  Now a lot of this just becomes part of the routine after a while, which makes it much easier.  The other thing (initiative) is you just have to get up and do what needs to be done.  You know the Nike saying, "Just do it" - couldn't apply more. 

There will always be some of us who still fit more in their day than others, but it's all about priorities.  Choose those things that are an absolute must and make sure those happen, choose some that you would like but are not completely essential to your life and make them happen some of the time, and eliminate those that you just don't have to do (I'm not saying cut out things you don't like but have to do anyway, like laundry, which is still a must whether or not you like doing it - I'm thinking something more along the lines of feeling committed to accept plans from friends you don't totally enjoy spending time with - it's OK to say no).  I guess the last point is really, it's OK to say no sometimes.

It really is a balancing act.  We may not always be able to do it all, and that's alright.  I think the pressure of feeling like we have to is so stressful - and that if we don't, we're somehow failing as a working mom.  Having other moms to support us and to discuss these issues with makes it so much less alienating.  I truly appreciate those mom friends who get it, don't judge me and offer copious amounts of encouragment when needed.  So a big thank you to all of you out there - I feel better knowing I'm not alone and I don't always have to be perfect.  We just do the best we can - and that's more than OK.