When you have two young kids, time becomes a very strange animal.

You try and tame it, but you cannot. You try and predict it, but you cannot. Planned free time gets swallowed up in unexpected emergency bathroom trips or the consoling of a hurt child. Previously occupied and satisfied children become immediately, inexplicably “bored” and starved for your attention. Then there are times when you find an unexpected moment of solace in the midst of madness. And, too often, you don’t have your favorite book along to cash in.

Scheduling is critical in the fight against time. Or is it the fight for time?

So how does a ManMom spend his time?

Some days are better than others. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are a three ring circus. You had better hope you find something relaxing to do before 11:30 (or, more likely, some cleaning and laundry) because after that, it’s a mad dash to dinner. Here’s the basic play-out of events.

Make lunch
Eat lunch (while cleaning up from lunch and making a snack)
Wash kids
Send kids to bathroom
Start car (winter requires extra time for everything. Yes, absolutely everything).
Dress kids
Stuff kids into car
Sweep off windows of car (scraping may be necessary, too)
Mad-dash to school for Jack
Mad-dash a half hour in the opposite direction to school for Lucie
POSSIBLE FREE TIME! (I can sometimes get a whole hour here in a coffee shop to read or do what I please. This is sweet, sweet solace time)
Pick up Jack early from school (because otherwise, we don’t have time to make the next step)
Pick up Lucie, usually late, from school
Drive the half-hour or so (more in winter rush hour) back home
Make supper (you should have started this in the morning to save time) / let kids watch a video
Eat supper together
Give bath (every second day) / clean up from supper at the same time
Get dressed for bed
Play/read stories
Send to bathroom, brush teeth, give a drink, etc, etc.
Put to bed
Wait for the kids to fall asleep
Discipline the kids for not going to sleep
Repeat the last two steps over and over again.
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And those are just the non-negotiables my friends! Yesterday I fit a meeting in there. Some times we have to make other stops, go to the Library, pick up some groceries, or whatever.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are more forgiving, as Lucie doesn’t have school those days. Sometimes, I can give her an afternoon nap and buy myself some … time.

Today happens to be a Thursday, which means I need to cut this off and do some cleaning before getting us all to gymnastics by 10:30 AM.

Good thing I love my kids.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 4:19 pm and is filed under ManMom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.