I am admittedly not the most organized person in the world. This has likely been made worse with the addition of the twins over the summer. But I couldn’t say for sure 😉
Last night I had every intention of making my oldest son’s lunch for school the next day. This wasn’t the case – instead an impromptu three hour long nap happened after reading my toddler a bedtime story. (I’m sure some of you can relate!)
So this morning I got to make breakfast and pack a school lunch with an alert infant in my arms, wistfully watching the coffee still brewing.
Yaaaay.
Now that school has started again, the only way I’m going to survive busy mornings is to force myself to plan ahead more. To save time on school mornings, I hereby resolve to live by these timesaving guidelines:
1: MUST. PROGRAM. COFFEE. MAKER. AT. NIGHT.
A morning without a cup of coffee FIRST is a morning that doesn’t run smoothly for me, no matter what! Coffee is the sanity saving potion especially until the twins figure out they are supposed to sleep at night.
In case of a time crunch (maybe I slept late, maybe the twins were up early), this will ensure that coffee will be there for me to lean on!
2: Making school lunches needs to happen the night before
My mom was basically Wonder Woman. When I was young she would get up at 6am each morning, start a fire in the wood stove, make five lunches, make breakfast for five, then shower and get herself ready to leave by 7:30am.
And she never even used dry shampoo! Can I just say #goals?
Making school lunches in the morning adds a layer of stress to the start of my day. Peaceful are the mornings when lunch is magically ready to go in the refrigerator and already inside the lunchbox!
I am going to make two lunches per child at a time so I will only have to do it several nights per week. My son looks forward to buying the occasional school lunch on Fridays on the weeks that I really run out of steam.
3: Get creative with breakfast
I know I shouldn’t, but I totally have mom guilt when my kids have instant oatmeal or cold cereal too often.
They really love scrambled eggs with ham and cheddar. If I mix up a batch of this and keep it in the refrigerator Sunday evenings I can probably get a couple of breakfasts out of it. Maybe the same with pancake mix? I’ve found I can make a batch of steel cut oats ahead of time and reheat in bowls in the morning.
4: Have kids get shoes ready the night before
This might sound silly, but my boys will inevitably either not be able to find their shoes (despite us having a designated space for them!) or have an impossible knot that requires getting creative with a fork to untie it seconds before we need to leave the house.
My preschooler often insists on wearing two different shoes (which I can live with). That belong on the same foot (which I cannot). To avoid these mishaps from here on out, my kids will be setting their (agreed upon!) shoes by the door the night before.
5. Remember that dry shampoo exists for a reason!
This is so I can try to look somewhat presentable for those mornings I do preschool drop-offs. It’s been a game changer!