Another new segment that I will try to bring weekly! We often hear about having a 9 to 5 job and while that might be true for some individuals, in my experience, a working mom does not have a 9 to 5 job. Depending on your actual work schedule hours, and what your share of the household/family management is, if you are a working mom, your schedule is probably similar to mine - 5am to 9pm.
I thought I'd give you a general overview of what a normal day/week looks like for me, and then add some struggles or successes that I had. Going forward, since you'll have a general idea of what my week looks like, I'll write about struggles and successes I've had during the week.
I'll start with the weekends since I see my week as starting on Saturday just because of how I do my meal planning. The reason I start my week on Saturdays is that I grocery shop on Saturdays, so that makes a lot of sense to me.
Saturdays
My husband has always taken the early shift - with Sami and Preston. When I stopped breastfeeding, or was pumping and was back at work, he would take care of everything if it was after 2am until I was up. That's still the case, although we'll trade off if one of us is up 2-3 nights in a row. That means I get to sleep in on Saturdays... well kind of. I'm a light sleeper in the morning, and Sami can tend to be loud when she plays. I'll usually wake up a few times between 5 and 8. I rarely get up after 9, though it happens.
Sami has swim lessons on Saturdays. We go to Safe Splash and are enrolled in a class called Parent and Me. Our class is at 10. I love it and I think she does too. We usually have to be out the door by 9:30. If memory serves, I enrolled her for classes back in August. It was before we went to Hawaii. I wanted to have an idea of how she would act in a pool so I wasn't totally unprepared when we took her into a pool or near the ocean. I found that the class taught her really good skills and we've kept going since. She's starting to kick with both feet, she can climb out of the pool without assistance, and can "monkey crawl" (hold on to the sides of the pool and hand-crawl alongside). She can blow bubbles in the water, currently doesn't like to go underwater and is starting to learn how to "scoop" the water (arm strokes). I love seeing her develop alongside her little friends she's made. If she wants to continue the classes when she gets older, I'm more than happy to keep her enrolled. They do a great job. (No this is not a sponsored post - I have no sponsors.)
After naptime, which is typically around 1pm and can last up to 2 hours, I take Sami with me to do the grocery shopping.
Sundays
I also get to sleep in on Sundays, but again I'm rarely up after 9. If I'm awake too early, I'll take the opportunity to have some me-time and catch up on some of my favorite TV shows.
We try to plan an activity for Sami on Sundays. She gets restless if she's stuck in the house all day. Sometimes, the activity can be as simple as going to Target. I'm looking forward to nice weather so that we can go to the park.
I've also recently assigned the majority of my meal prep to Sundays. Works fabulously as Sami is starting to enjoy some independent playtime usually with her kitchen, art or watching one of her shows (subject for another time).
Monday-Friday
I set the alarm for 5, which means I start sleeping restlessly around this time, trying to plan the morning as I toss and turn hoping to get a few more minutes of shut-eye. Probably not the most restful sleep, or the best way to use my time. I'm usually up by 5:30, but I've been known to push it a little further if I've had a rough night. I suppose you could say my day actually starts at 5:30 but 5-9 sounds better, haha! Ideally 5am would be a better time for me to wake up... I'll aim for it.
Once I'm dressed and have my hair & make-up done, I get Sami's lunch ready (hubby handles the breakfast). I pack her main lunch, along with sides (always fruit - peaches, or berries - I know she will eat those so I don't try to overthink it - I'll worry about introducing new things at dinner time). Other sides include cheese, go-gurt or crackers. I then pack her a couple snacks too - more fruit (usually berries or watermelon) and go-gurt, or applesauce. I know the daycare provides snacks, but I like to make sure she has fruit every day.
I also pack her 2 cups of milk... which I forgot to do yesterday... it seems to happen at least once a week. I swear I thought of it three times, and still forgot to do it. Oh well. I'm thankful for my husband, because I'm sure he packed it for her. I leave her lunch and snacks on the counter, labelled "lunch" or "snack" and hubby puts it in her lunchbox & schoolbag. Yes, she has a school bag and it's the cutest thing... It was even cuter when she first got it - it was way too big for her, but she still wanted to wear it. It's still too big for her, but doesn't look at funny.
I'm usually out the door by 6:20 so that I can avoid traffic. I get to work around 7:00ish. Since I don't have to clock in until 7:30, I usually take it slow in the morning. I'll get my breakfast ready in the break-room kitchen, or I'll go buy it across the street because they have yummy breakfast burritos. I'll check a few websites (sports news, regular news, Facebook, etc.) until it's time to clock in and then I get to work.
I have an accounting job and do a lot of auditing. It requires detailed attention to detail and my attention is often very focused for hours. That being said, some days are very mentally draining which can make the evenings very interesting.
I usually break for lunch around 11:30, but it can vary depending on time sensitive tasks. For example, I didn't get to clock out for lunch today until after 12:30. Makes for a shorter afternoon I guess :)
My work day ends at 4:00, but that is certainly not the end to my day. After work, I go pick up Sami at daycare. The commute to the daycare can take anywhere from 45 minutes (woohoo) to over an hour (boohoo). As of late, it's been close to an hour and a half which is such a bummer.
I pick up Sami from daycare, and we get her schoolbag and any other items we need to bring home that aren't already in her bag. I usually talk to her teacher for a few minutes and then we head on home. The commute home is thankfully just about 10 minutes, but can stretch to 15 minutes with local traffic. I'd say I'm usually home by 5:15. I think that's a fair average.
I try to have dinner ready by 6:00 since Sami's bedtime routine begins at 7:00. Depending on when I got home, and what's on the menu, that might mean I get to play with Sami for 15-20 minutes, or I have to get dinner ready minutes after walking in the door. This is why I like meal prep and easy meals like sheet pan dinners.
At 7:00 it's time to get the bath ready. By 7:30, we are usually rocking in her rocking chair, with her milk. We then read 3 books, go brush her teeth and I'll sing her lullabies until she falls asleep. She's usually out by 8-8:15.
Then it's time to go clean the kitchen! The day never ends it seems.. ha! But I'm so close to done by then. I empty the dishwasher, fill the dishwasher, run the dishwasher. Every night (unless there's really nothing in the dishwasher, which is rare). I then hand wash all of Sami's dishes, wipe down the counters and call it a night! On the off night, I might do a little more meal prep for the next day. Like last night, my husband cubed up some beef for the slow cooker stew we'll eat tonight. I then browned the meat and onions. All he has to do is dump the beef, onions, potatoes, carrots & liquids into the slow cooker and we'll have delicousness tonight! Woohoo.
After 9:00... depending on how tired I am, we'll usually watch a little TV before bed. And sometimes, the night calls for a relaxing hot bubble bath with salts... I think tonight feels like one of those nights.
Last week
My struggles last week were with my commute. As stated in my post.. snow, snow, go away.... We've had a terribly dry winter. Hardly any snow. We got a bit of snow last Monday and it made for an atrociously slow commute into work on Tuesday. I left around my usual time, maybe as much as 10 minutes late, so let's say 6:30am. I got to the office at 8:45am. My usually commute takes 40 minutes.
I feel like it totally threw off my week. I had taken Monday off because the daycare was closed (also was a bank holiday) so I knew I already would have some catch up work to do. And then I lost my morning which is usually super quiet because not many people come in before 8:30. I had to play catch-up on my morning tasks. And then I got hit with 200+ checks to review.
To top it off, the commute was bad on the way home on a different day - maybe it was Wednesday. And then I had agreed to work late on Friday, so I got home after 6:00 - I want to say close to 6:30 on Friday. Thankfully hubby had agreed to pick up Sami at daycare.
In all fairness though, if my biggest issues are a bad commute every now and then, I can't complain too much. Thankfully I had planned an easy week of meals like spaghetti with sauce from a jar (I did add ground turkey). And, I believe it was on Friday - we went out to eat just so I had one less thing to do :)
Success for the week? I don't really think I have something successful to share, but listening to podcasts in the car while stuck in traffic... that made it more enjoyable. If you have podcasts you enjoy - let me know. The one I'm currently into is called "
The Mom Hour".
Oh maybe a success. I've started getting Sami to help me clean up her toys before starting the bedtime routine. She was struggling with helping to clean up at daycare so I doubled my efforts. Yesterday, I found out she's doing much better!
Have a great week everyone!
