6 days left of summer….I have started the countdown. In a week, my son will be starting school again, my daughter entering Pre-K soon after that, and life will get back to the normal routine. What the heck is normal??
I know, I have it easy. My son is entering 2nd grade – there is not much to get ready for. Most of his clothes still fit, he doesn’t need school supplies per ce (just a check for the teacher to help with the cost of general things). My daughter’s situation is the same – no new clothes or supplies needed – I even think last year’s lunch boxes and backpacks will suffice. So what is the big deal?
The big deal is ME. Returning to school means returning to routines, ones that have been gently phased out during the summer months. It means stricter bed times (and EARLIER ones too). It means getting up early (for me – not them – they are ALWAYS up early) and not only getting them ready for school, but ME too. It means frantically rushing around, no matter how good my intentions are the night before, as I try to do the near-impossible: get the 3 of us out of the door on time, appropriately dressed, fed and groomed.
May I be honest? I hate it! I like to ramp up slowly, drink my coffee, clear my head, check the headlines in the newspaper (if I REALLY have time) or on my computer for the news of the day. (I like to be in the “know” and if something has happened in the country or the world, I want to know about it – not hear about it half a day later from some moms chattering at pick-up time).
In a perfect world, I would wake up an hour earlier and my kids would wake up an hour later. Then I could do my thing and be ready to greet not only the day but my family as well. But you have not seen me up an hour earlier – it’s not perfect – unless you want to say it’s perfect-ly awful. I am not interested in waking up before dawn, I am interested in getting more much-needed beauty sleep. I was the one, in my working girl days, who wore out the snooze button on my hated alarm clock, sleepily begging each morning for just a minute or two more. Now of course I don’t need an alarm clock – I have two early birds of my own – and even without a full-time job to head off to, I STILL find myself having to be up and at ‘em and out the door before 8:00am. Another example of Life’s funny sense of humor.
So, do I take advantage of these last few days and continue with our lazy routine? The enjoy it while it lasts plan. Or, do I take the more responsible route and start getting us back into the school-day schedule? Perhaps gradually (in these last 6 days) getting the kids to bed a little bit earlier – even if it’s just 5 minutes earlier each night. If I could stick with that, we just might be in good shape on the bedtime front.
Of course, the bedtime I need to work on the most is MINE. Staying up until midnight most nights just isn’t feasible for this Zen Mama Wannabe if I want to be coherent and functioning by 7am the next morning. I wonder if you can turn yourself into a morning person? Hmm – I have 6 days to experiment – if I want to go that route. What would YOU do?
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