Questions: 01: The Daily Grind

"1. How do you manage the daily routine? A school aged child, preschool aged children, a toddler and a baby on the way...and still find time to stay in shape, take care of the house, feed everyone. Your own typical chaos!!! "

I've always been schedule oriented... from childhood.  It was natural for me to put June on a schedule when he was a baby and we just have stuck with it from there.   Our daily grind loosely looks like this: 

7:00 Josh gets up and is allowed to go downstairs to play video games 
(Video games stop once breakfast starts and they are not allowed back on the rest of the day.  Josh had become a angry-video-zombie a few months ago so we had to reign that in.)

7:15/7:30 Elizabeth gets up and is allowed to come into my room and chill until I get up, ready, and head downstairs at which point she can come downstairs too.
(She had been getting into trouble when she was allowed downstairs with her brothers... candy sneaking and such.)

7:35: I get up and moving

7:45: June gets up and joins Josh

8:00: I head downstairs to make June's lunch, make breakfast, feed the masses, and make sure Josh and Eliz get dressed.

8:30: I get Emily up and give her breakfast to eat in the car.  If Jim is still sleeping, I can sometimes leave Emily sleeping with him during this time and while I take June to school.  Jim usually leaves around 9 so the timing works out well.

8:35/8:40: We get into the car and drive June to school.  There is often a stop for coffee made at this point unless I need to get home to relive Jim of sleeping-Emily duty. 

9:00-12:00:  Up for grabs.  Sometimes this is where I will workout and shower while the kids play.  Playdates can happen in this time.  Chores can be tackled... switching laundry, cleaning breakfast, tidying anything I missed from the previous day, tidying upstairs, etc.  An errand may be run also/instead.  It's an open time right now, so we tend to fill it with something, whether fun or necessary.  

12:00: Lunch

1:00: Naps: Emily sleeps, Eliz goes upstairs for 1-2 hours for quiet time.  Josh can play quietly in the playroom and some TV time is granted here as well.  I try to keep 1:00-4:00 pretty mellow.  Most times this is a pocket of time when I can get chores done as well.  This is a BIG to-do list time.  

3:50: Get June off the bus. 

4:00-5:00: I usually let the big 3 relax (i.e. stare at the TV).  Emily gets up from nap.  Dinner is cooked.  

5:00: Dinner is eaten... after dinner lately we have had baseball games, or will play outside or head to a park.  

6:30: Bath starts... this takes different forms, but when I'm in charge of it, I bathe Em, Elizabeth, and Josh together quickly while June gets a shower.  They all get dressed and Emily gets tucked in.  Then books are read. to the other 3, prayers, song, and tuck in.  This is usually done by 8-ish.  Jim usually gets home prior to 8 and will jump in and read to the boys, while I go downstairs and clean the mess from the day.  

8:00-10:00: "Free" time... laundry gets folded while I catch up on shows, the house gets cleaned.  Usually those two things take up the night (exciting, I know!).  Sometimes there is for extras, but not super often at this point.  

So....

That's the rough schedule for the day, but I am learning that the key to sucess is to keep moving through the day.  I used to be able to steal pockets of time for graphic design or just web surfing.  These days there is less time for that... they are all prety little and there is lots of maintainance for both them and the house.  When there is a calm time where the kids are playing nicely or quiet time is happening, I need to use that to stay on top of the house.  There is pretty much a constant stream of "pick this up," "put that away," "rearrange this," "scrub that"... I used to kind of leave the house as it is until night time and I would clean all at once.  The kids have this magic power of completely annihilating the state of the house to a point where it is too much to rectify in one night.  If I push myself to do housework as a constant process things are more manageable (and presentable during the day too).  

As for working out, I've come to this:  set it as a priority.  When I had June, I got out and walked almost every day.  It was part of our routine.  I have recently decided that I'm going to put the same level of priority into working out again, but now I have to do it all at home because there are too many people to fineggle in order to exercise out of the house.  My key has been to wake up and put on my workout clothes right away.  I'm not allowed to get out of them and shower until I am done my workout for the day.  I find that when I shower in the morning (which I love), I get dressed and pretty and have SUCH LITTLE motivation to workout because I'm already "ready" for the day.  By night, I'm tired and make a million excuses.  Right now, getting into workout clothes at the start of the day is key.
Basically, I try to do what works for me at that time... at some points it was a night workout, at other times it was getting up before the kids, it getting out to classes, but now it's using our 9-12 AM pocket of time to get a workout in.  

Lastly, as for managing the level of small people in my house at different ages and stages: it's actually easier than it once was.  June, Josh, and Eliz occupy each other much of the time.  I feel like the biggest need from me is the home form of classroom management.  Keeping things even keel and everyone alive is the goal for the bigger three.  Emily toddles around and does her thing, but she gets held... a lot.  When things get outrageously crazy I have a few defaults:  

TV 
(No shame... I limit the amount of time it's on, but I will use it when things are loud and crazy)

Arts and crafts 
(I have a craft box with all different supplies... I'll grab paper and a medium and have them sit at the kitchen table and create)

Chores 
(I will have the kids clean the playroom or help me with something to shift the mood in the house and take up time) 

Separation
(Whether a cool-down in their room or sitting in the kitchen, just to give distance for a few minutes, sometimes being removed from the situation is all they need.)

Getting OUT  
(When we go out to a park, it's always an easier time... fresh air, room to run!) 

Overall, though, I'm just a mom trying to take care of kids, the house, and myself.  This is our daily grind, our monotonous, non-exciting, very "mom" daily grind.  

It gets loud and hectic and there are times I just want silence and peace, but I've learned that loud and hectic and frustrating isn't bad.  

We have a mesh of many distinctly different people, at various stages of learning and developing.  That means a level of chaos that isn't seen everywhere.  There is more to do around the house: more people to dirty it, more food to cook, and more clothes to wash.  More interactions with others: more fights to break up, more boo boos to kiss, more boundries to set, but more hugs and love and support as well.  That's just how it is and each day a choice is made to keep going, keep cleaning, keep raising, keep loving... keep on keepin' on. :)