routine

Morning Routine Reality Check

Ah, morning routines. There’s something about the allure of the millennial morning routine, which, according to TikTok, is some combination of drinking a glass of water, working out, skincare, supplements, making your bed, coffee, and having a paleo-Keto-Whole 30-approved-grain-and-dairy-free breakfast. 

These routines…are not my reality. Well, besides the skincare. But I never make my bed.

The thing is, off our screens, real-life pops up, no matter how aspirational a routine we had planned for the day. Instead of a glow-y filter with perky music and “6:00 am” text floating across the screen as you rise out of bed, the baby was up several times that night, so you fight to stay in bed as long as possible. A kid throws a tantrum over getting dressed or brushing their teeth, and that was 20 minutes you didn’t plan for. Cheerios and milk get splashed across the entire kitchen floor. School gets moved to distance learning which doesn’t throw off only the morning but your entire week.

I do have a morning routine, though I’m not sure how aspirational it is. Maybe less aspirational and more relatable? Below, I present to you one Mom’s morning routine reality check. This is no TikTok video, so please imagine some dramatic Rocky-esque music while you read through:

6:30: Lie in bed semi-awake, hoping to fall asleep again.
7:00: Alarm rings. Hit snooze.
7:09: Turn off alarm. Take quick scroll through Instagram and weather forecast.

Read the rest over at Twin Citie’s Mom Collective.

Life Lately

The kids are all in school. I repeat, the kids are all in school. This is not a drill! 

I’m taking a break this fall, as much as I can. Having three kids in two years was no joke. I already felt like I needed a break: throw in a global pandemic for most of the past two years and I definitely need a break.

“Call it a sabbatical!” a friend told me. (You know who you are.) “Pastors get sabbaticals after seven or so years, and damn if mothering isn’t just as hard and holy of work.” 

So a sabbatical it is.

What I’ve discovered, almost three full weeks in, is that I’m not very good at sabbatical-ing.

The first week I was restless. I tackled a bunch of things around the house, from decluttering bedrooms to cleaning out the pantry. (But truly, I would not have been able to properly relax with the state the pantry was in.)

The second week I overscheduled myself. I had appointments or meetings every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. (Though part of that was unavoidable. So much of scheduling appointments is “We can either get you in next Wednesday or not until this random Tuesday in February” and so of course you take next Wednesday, no matter what else your week might hold.) I went from feeling like I had a pretty good handle on things to feeling I had nothing under control because I was hardly home.

Which brings me here, to week three. Really, I keep preaching to myself, give it at least a month to settle in. Life has been the opposite of a sabbatical for the past seven-plus years and it’s absurd to think I can turn it around in an instant.

Still, I find it hard to rest when there is still so much to be done. I’m ordering Halloween costumes and meeting writing deadlines and sending emails and trying to organize a pledge drive for church and concocting a meal plan each week and making up Christmas lists to get ahead of any 2021 supply-chain drama and that means I should go through the toys in the playroom before the influx of Christmas gifts and we basically finished our basement except I never did get around to finding sconces, and, and, and.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. For the past seven years, I’ve done all of the above plus or minus three or so kids around. But when the goal is to rest, it’s hard to sort out, to prioritize, to put it in front of the work. I’m trying. I’ve begun re-watching Downton Abbey in the afternoons before the kids get home from school. I’m reading some. I’ve been knitting a bit. 

I’m also entering this brave new world and trying to figure out what on earth “rest” even means anymore. I hope I get to the point where I really do slow down before figuring out what I want next in life. I hope I get to the point where I watch TV all day (a Ted Lasso re-watch, anyone?) and don’t feel guilty about it, because I’m still worthy and loved right where I’m at, even if I don’t check anything off my to-do list, even if I just sit around on a couch surrounded by snacks all day. That sounds amazing, but right now, it’s much easier for me to say than to actually do.

Stay tuned.
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Action Item

Listen, this isn’t my usual type of “take action” item, but might I suggest to all the parents living in areas where snow is imminent to check your stock of winter gear NOW. Last year I went through all the kids’ winter gear in September and felt like the smuggest of actual GENIUSES when we got a surprise snowstorm in mid-October and I was actually prepared. So: coats, boots, hats, mittens/gloves, snowpants. Multiples of the hats and gloves. Onward!

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Around the Internet

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Eating

  • These sausage and cheddar stuffed onions take a little bit of effort but spend most of their time in the oven and come out tasting like fall. I served them last weekend with cornbread and brussels sprouts.

  • As far as I’m concerned, September is for baking with apples. My first foray into fall baking this year was this apple cake which pairs perfectly with an afternoon cup of tea. Or breakfast. Or the last thing you eat before bed. You get it.

  • These aren’t addicting,” she says, as she eats three more from the package before tucking it back in its hiding place in the pantry.

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Fun Things

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  • Nolan is playing soccer and while he’s never played before, he’s actually pretty good! It’s the first sport I’ve seen him truly embrace and, most importantly, all that running is REAL good for him.

  • I haven’t worn it yet * shakes fist at 80+ degree weather * but this cardigan is soft, snuggly, and definitely going to make my fall cozier.

  • I ordered these chairs for the kids to use around their art table. Inexpensive, stackable, and they might be white, but they wipe down easily with a Magic Eraser. If you’re already going the IKEA route, I’m also loving this pegboard.

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I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers” is the only possible way I can end this newsletter on the eve of the month filled with things that truly feel like fall. Here’s to finding our own sort of rest in the Octobers in front of us.

That Minivan Life

Brooklyn and Nolan tumble into the mudroom where they kick off their sandals. I’m right behind them, glass of iced-coffee-going-to-water in hand. 

“You have one hour. I’m going to eat breakfast. Make sure your teeth are brushed and you find your water bottles before we head out again.” They scamper off to play and (hopefully) follow directions.

Summer began barely a week ago and already I feel as though I’ve been living in my minivan.

Our day kicked off with a near hour-long trek to drop Caden off at Summer Academy by 8 am. (Praise hands that concludes before The Fourth.) Brooklyn and Nolan have PlayNet on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9:30-noon. There have been playdates and park meet-ups. There will be day camps.

I’m already regretting not taking advantage of the bussing option to get Caden to and from Summer Academy. I thought I was saving him close to an hour each way. Well, I am, but I didn’t stop to think who would be spending that hour driving instead. *insert raised hand and slap-face emojis here* Tyson told me we should bus him and let it be known in writing here today honey that you were right.

(Also, the pollution. Why didn’t I do the communal drive option? I mean, I guess we hardly went anywhere last summer—the first eight weeks of lockdown we didn’t fill up a tank of gas once— so maybe I’m allocated some extra miles this year? Still. Ugh.)

This minivan life can be chaotic. And I’m not talking about the lunacy that is Minnesota roads under construction in the summertime. I’m talking about what happens inside those marvelous power-glide, push-of-a-button sliding doors.

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There are kids who expect me to do some sort of backward yoga move to retrieve whatever toy/snack/piece of trash they dropped while also navigating us safely through traffic. Kids fighting over things like “looking at me” and “breathing” and “maybe they rolled their eyes at me.” There’s the general state of the car, what with the leftover Starbucks cups and granola wrappers and Goldfish dust and LEGO pieces which are expressly forbidden to leave the house but somehow migrate out to the minivan anyway. (That they escape in pockets and tiny fists while I distractedly dash through the house to go to the bathroom, yell at everyone else to go to the bathroom, ensure everyone has a water bottle, mask, and shoes, and run back in the house because I forgot at least one of these things is just a guess.)

We’re managing. Wow in the World has already emerged as the podcast of choice to get us through the long drives to and from Summer Academy. Water bottles and snacks are a must, even if stray pretzels and fruit snacks end up atrophying on the floor. 

Sometimes we’re more than managing. There are giggles during the podcast, even if it’s about poop and I’ve already heard that word or one of its many iterations 34 times that morning. Sometimes we sing along to Hamilton or Taylor Swift. Yesterday they practiced the song and actions they’ll be performing at church on Sunday, Nolan’s voice practically shouting despite the song being called “One Small Voice.” (Guess that title is only a nice suggestion.) 

There’s Caden climbing into the car after Summer Academy, full of stories about his day and reminders for tomorrow. “I made my picture like this and no one else did it this way, Mommy. They all made a flower because that was the example but I decided to do something different!” and “Don’t forget we need to wear our Summer Academy shirts tomorrow.” and “I spent my fifty cents of snack money on a Fruit by the Foot because you never buy them so I took my chance.”

There are the times where we drive and it’s blessedly quiet and I see their big blue eyes staring out the windows as the trees and the lakes and the buildings pass by. They seem to be just taking it all in and I think, “This is nice.”

I’ve only ever thought of the minivan as a thing to get us from point A to point B; from this one thing we’re doing to that other thing we’re doing. It’s time to kill: please sit down and buckle up and let me think and don’t ask too many questions. But having spent several hours in the car each day this week, I’m discovering it’s all its own time. 

It might not be exactly how I wish I were spending my time, which would preferably be reading a book in a hammock with a light breeze, cold drink, and children playing in the background. (Reader, my children never play in the background.) (Also, I don’t own a hammock. Details.) At the very least, I might wish I were listening to a podcast of my choice instead of the same few episodes of Wow in the World on repeat.

I’ve heard people talk about how much time they spend in the car running kids around, how they feel like a chauffeur, and I thought, Surely they’re exaggerating. Guess not. I have spent so. much. time. in my minivan this week. This wholly ordinary thing I never thought all that much about when it was only eight minutes to school and back, twelve minutes to dance class, ten to hit up McDonald’s for Happy Meals. 

All these drop-offs and pick-ups and the kids are there and so am I. We’re our own little universe bumping down the road, and sometimes they fight over who gets to put their hand where and I wonder if I should even bother with the ground-in crackers in the carpet and other times they ask about each other’s days and pass around compliments like candy and sing along to We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and it’s both harmonious and also entirely off-key.

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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Minutiae".

Creating Rituals Instead of Resolutions

Am I the only one who feels as though setting resolutions feels a little too much right now?

To be honest, I feel that every year. Resolutions and choosing a word and all that “new year, new me” talk has never lit a fire under me. But this year especially.

The new year arriving in January has always felt a little off to me. Especially if you’re a parent to little kids; we still have the same routines, same nap schedules, and same mealtimes to adhere to. The kids return to the same grades with the same teachers after winter break. Also? We live in Minnesota. It’s hard to feel like anything has changed with an almost unbroken wall of white outside our windows and a temperature that will hover around freezing for at least the next two months.

Then, of course, there’s this year, where things feel the same most of all. When we’re closing in on nearly a year of working from home, schooling from home, social distancing, wearing masks, and hibernating from other people. In some ways, we’ve been living the concept of “winter” for months now.

This year, it’s enough for me to remember how to get us all out of the house at one time. I’ll need a crash course in packing lunches five days a week when in-person school begins again. It’s enough, without resolutions, for me to continue to keep things going: to meet deadlines, to shovel the driveway, to cook regular meals. It’s enough to continue to stay in touch with people in creative ways, whether through social distancing at the park or virtual happy hours over Zoom. It’s enough to enforce screen time limits on not only the kids, but also myself.

No, this year, of all the years, calls for a softer and gentler approach. 

Forget resolutions. Let’s set some rituals. 

To go all English teacher nerd on you, a ritual is defined as “any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner.” Yes, please. I love routines anyway, so please let me plan out my weeks and days with “regularly performed patterns of behavior in a set manner” and I will live my best life. While a ritual could be mundane enough to be boring (teeth brushing comes to mind), I think instituting rituals into certain parts of our week can be life-giving instead of draining. And this year, more than most, I think we could use things to liven up our days, to give us something to look forward to, and to break up the monotony of our weeks.

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Read more about setting rituals over on Twin Cities Mom Collective.

We Have A Lot of Stuff Going On Here

“Mommy, I have a lot of stuff going on here,” my daughter complains, staring at the screen of her iPad during distance learning, a scene that’s become all too familiar in our house. Remnants from a full morning of schooling—papers, crayons, snack wrappers, a whiteboard—are scattered across her desk: a very literal visual of a lot of stuff going on over here. I wander over and watch as she stumbles over some of the longer words in an assignment’s written instructions.

I look at her screen, at the bevy of assignments related to sight words and skip counting and something called fact families. I swipe down on the screen to view the directions.

“You can listen to the instructions,” I tell her. The first-grade teachers have prepared for the exact situation, of their still-young readers being overwhelmed by large blocks of text, “Remember? Press play right here. It will tell you exactly what to do next.”

I tiptoe away so I don’t interrupt her brother’s voice recording. I sit down at my own computer screen in the kitchen, far enough away I can’t see them, but close enough to be interrupted if they need me, which is approximately every 2.65 minutes. I look at my own screen with six tabs too many open and find similar words bouncing around my own brain.

What was I doing?
Where was I?
I’ve got a lot of stuff going on here.

Unlike my daughter, I don’t have an older, wiser person nearby to help me figure it all out. There’s no one around to check that I’ve done my work, for me to interrupt every couple of minutes to ask what I need to do next. Also, I’m 33 years old. In the language of the millennial memes I see around me, it’s my job to get this adulting done on my own.

But adulting is frequently the actual last thing I want to do. At my worst, when I’m feeling anxious and lazy and anything but capable, this devolves into a social media doomscroll on my phone. Or I wander around, half-completing tasks, as I wait out the minute or two or five I have before the inevitable interruption that is distance learning with three kids.

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Read more about “all the stuff we have going on here” over on Twin Cities Mom Collective.