As as stay at home mom, I deal with a daily struggle of finding the balance. With my choice to stay home with my kids comes the pressure of actually being a present mom with them throughout the day while attempting to make sure they don’t turn my house into a scene from the movie Twister. With three kids, laundry, dishes, and messes are never in short supply. And with so many hours in a day, if I don’t have a plan to tackle our household routines, I quickly turn into a bitter, not nice mom and wife. Add on top of that a giant scoop of mom guilt realizing some days I have done nothing but buzz around like a busy bee, and it becomes obvious that if I am not intentional with how my time is spent each day, my day ends up controlling me. So here are a few tidbits of wisdom I have collected over the past several years from friends, books, and blogs that have helped me find a happier balance each day (when I actually do them).
1. Start the Day with Quiet Time
Let’s be honest. I hit my snooze button a minimum of three times the majority of my mornings. However, as of late I have made an extra effort to get out of bed on time in order for me to have a few minutes of “me” time. I’ll make a cup of coffee, and sit in my favorite room of the house, which is our office. Sometimes I’ll light a candle, read my bible or devotional, pray, and go over the day’s schedule. It is simply phenomenal how much nicer I am on the days I make this a reality.
2. OK to Wake Alarm
Two thirds of our kids are early risers. Although it took about a week for them to adapt to it, this little gem has ensured they stay in bed until an appropriate time every morning. This also makes the above mentioned quiet time a more likely reality if I’m not woken up to a certain little person tapping me on the face at 6 am.
3. A Load a Day Keeps Mean Mommy Away
You’ve read about how to tackle the laundry beast. And every mom knows that it is just that: a never ending beast. After trying several methods, I had a mom friend mention one time that she puts a load in when she wakes up every morning, throws in the dryer at some point throughout the morning, then folds and puts away during nap time. Uh, genius! Why didn’t I think of that? If I stick to this, it keeps my kids from digging their school clothes out of hampers and me threatening to make our family join a nudist colony because IF I FOLD ONE MORE PAIR OF TODDLER SIZED PJS TODAY I’M GOING TO SCREAM.
4. Get Dishes Done While Kids Are Eating Breakfast
Aaah dishes. Another never ending beast. Our routine with dishes that works like clockwork for us is my husband loads at night during bath time, I unload in the morning while the kids eat breakfast, and kids/me put dishes in throughout the day after use. Because nothing will ruin my morning like the smell of syrup, soggy waffles and sour milk in the sink.
5. After School Routine
For entirely too long, I would spend a stupid amount of time after school bringing in back packs, lunch boxes, coats, etc. from the car, then subsequently unloading all of them, along with folders. Until I realized, ummm this isn’t MY stuff, so why am I doing this again? My children are five and three, which makes them perfectly capable of taking in their stuff from the car and unloading/putting away their backpacks. So our new rule became: No iPad, TV, or snacks until school stuff is put away. Game changer.
6. Bedtime Alarm
I don’t know about your house, but evenings at our home are always chaotic. Between getting dinner prepared, eating, kids wanting to play with Daddy when he gets home…we look up and it’s time to get ready for bed. For the longest time, I would let the exhaustion catch up with me, constantly be looking at the clock so we could get the bedtime routine started at a decent time, and not enjoying our time together as a family. At all. While venting about this to a friend, she mentioned she had started setting an alarm to remind her when to start bedtime routines. Yes! It totally takes the guess work out of how long we have to play, and instead frees me up to enjoy that small window of time before bedtime.
What are some tips that help you be intentional with your time?
Thanks for this article. I needed it!
You described so much of our day to a tee!