5 on a Friday: First Week FAILS

 I gotta say, this week was a VERY GENTLE ENTRY to the school year. My classes all met online (hybrid this semester, and my in-person days are Monday and Tuesday, but my university didn't officially start class until Wednesday). Our extra curriculars have not yet kicked in (and next week, we only have diving; no dance until the following week). Minnie was the only kid to go on Tuesday, so we could all give her a celebratory morning, including Ben who drove late to Peoria (in our district, the "firsts" get the buildings to themselves the first day of school-- kindergarten, 6th grade, and freshmen). AND STILL, there were bumps and also FUTURE BUMPS.

1. TUESDAYS

Ok, so, this Tuesday was great, but I can see FUTURE TUESDAYS really sucking. For one thing! I will be the only adult at home getting 4 kids out the door with 3 different leave times (7:20, 7:40, 8). And! I have to leave the house absolutely NO LATER than 8:15 because I teach at 9:30, and I need to slog my way across town in stupid traffic, park my car, and make it to my classroom, which is not the same place where my office is, so it would be extra nice to go to my office first and unload some stuff-- but this is a pipe dream. I KNOW ME. 

Before I leave the house, I must:

• do 30 mins of cardio
• walk the dog once for 20 mins with all my weights
• 10 mins of strength**
• another dog walk before I leave her for a few hours-- would love 15 minutes, but 10 seems fine**
• get dressed
• get everyone out the door

(** these are not really musts because I will do the strength later, and the dog is fine w/o another walk but they must happen w/in the day and usually are easiest in the AM-- Annabel gets 4 walks a day as a baseline and really likes 2 before noon, but she is flexible)

Before I leave the house I would like to:

• clean up breakfast
• make sure bedrooms are tidy
• start laundry 
• make sure all the dirty clothes made it to the laundry room
• wipe down all 3 bathrooms

To help all of this happen, I have a few ideas:

• starting Minnie in the habit of choosing her whole week of clothes on Sunday (I wish I had done this with Dorothy, but that ship has sailed) and getting her dressed first thing before breakfast-- who care if she gets milk or toothpaste on her shirt).

(like this)

• asking Ben to make our Tuesday dinner ahead of time so I know I have something ready to warm up when the girls and I get home from dance/that Jack can make himself when he's home, especially if he gets home before us. This also works well for Ben because he can pack it to go for work lunch
• making sure my lunch is packed, my bag is packed, and my water bottle is filled
• packing all kid bags the night before (dive, dance, back packs, my work bag-- obvi the kids help with this)
• packing lunches the night before even though everyone complains about their pretzels being less crunchy  (older kids pack their own; I do mine and Minnie's)
• doing an aggressive basement tidy on Monday night with Ben's help so there are no errant dishes or clothes piles; same with Dorothy's room
• being ok with the house being a little messy when I get home from work and shifting my housework tasks to afternoon
• trying to build a buffer between the end of my day and the end of the school day so am not frazzled when kindy pick up happens

2. Low sped month is a freaking FAIL so far. Gah! I wanted to get back to tracking and saving more aggressively, but there is SO MUCH TO BUY in September. And with so many kids, everything is expensive. Putting 25 bucks in a lunch account, Ha surprise that's 100 bucks because there are 4 lunch accounts, etc.

3. Wasting time. I have not been alone in my house for this long since before the panny. It's hard not to let all that time go to my head.

4. Jumping on the roller coaster. It is hard to get middle schoolers out the door to go to school. Enough said.

5.  Shorting my work out, If I am running late and cut 6 minutes off every day, that's 42 minutes in the course of a week or more than a whole 30-minute sweat sesh. I have GOT to stop rotting in bed first thing in the morning.

Happy fall, though for realz