A Working Mom’s Morning Routine
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do less. live more.
I recently started listening to a new podcast. The show, Organize 365, is hosted by Lisa Woodruff, a personal organizer and Type A nerd. Only crazy people, people who enjoy reading about filing systems and de-cluttering, will like this podcast (people like me). However, in listening to a recent episode about morning routines, Woodruff said something that got me thinking.
As a productivity expert, she explained, she’d read countless books on productivity, many of which included a description of the authors’ (and similarly inspirational people’s) morning routines. It usually involved something like this: waking before the sun, hitting the gym, meditating for 15 to 60 minutes, and then getting into the office to eat that frog. After nearly throwing up and passing out at an early morning personal training session, Woodruff explained, it finally dawned on her: All the authors she was reading were men.
Now, I will admit: Occasionally, I do get up early and work out (I’m a big believer in the myriad benefits of exercise; Woodruff, not so much), and often I plug into Headspace to meditate before I even get out of bed (you can read my glowing review of Headspace here). I even try to eat the frog, almost every day. Nevertheless, I immediately heard the truth of Woodruff’s words.
Photo by Jonas Weckschmied on Unsplash
Let me share an example to illustrate. After the time change this past week, I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 4 am. By 5 am, I figured out I wasn’t going to fall back asleep and so I decided to hit the gym. The dog—who sleeps in a crate in our bedroom—scratched annoyingly at the walls of her crate, oblivious to the early hour and the sleeping toddlers. As I left, I let her outside to live her best dog life. Returning home—sweaty, smug, and caught up on the morning’s news—I opened my front door and was surprised to find her inside and my husband…angry at me.
“Next time you go to the gym at 5 am, could you leave the dog in her crate?” was my husband’s salty reward for my valiant effort.
Apparently, immediately after exiting the house, the dog started barking at the neighbor’s dogs, causing a general ruckus that nearly (but didn’t, thankfully) wake our sleeping children (husband not so lucky). Having our children wake up at 5 am is a REAL PROBLEM (OK, a first-world real problem, but still a real problem). There is a precious ten minutes of alone time at that hour of the morning, followed by a straight hour of %^&$ to do before they get up. The whole day is thrown off if they wake up early.
Woodruff’s point—and one illustrated in my story of morning marital bliss—is that for most mothers, and many fathers too, the myriad demands of multiple jobs, raising children, and caring for a home makes the morning routines of the uber-productive sound like a day at the spa.
Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash
A REAL MORNING ROUTINE
Defying all productivity experts, my morning routine looks like this: I spend my first hour awake (after that blissful ten minutes on Headspace) doing things like…I make a complicated mix of juice cocktails (half juice-half water because we don’t want them to be obese, one prune juice and one apple because we don’t want the constipated one to be constipated, half cold-half hot because…well we don’t want it too hot or too cold). I get myself dressed in about five minutes then spend twenty minutes arguing with afore-mentioned toddlers to get dressed. I make them breakfast, while trying to also eat mine, simultaneously packing the lunch bag, getting kids in coats (or sunscreen, depending on the season), wheedling children to brush their teeth, and so forth. My husband is basically doing all the same things except that he has waited until about 15 minutes before we need to leave to start doing them. I spend about two hours between leaving the house, dropping children at childcare, and getting myself to work (for “exciting” details about how I make some productive use of that time, see this post and this one.) Then I start working.
Come to think of it, maybe I eat the frog every morning.
Photo by Luigi Manga on Unsplash
SO WHAT’S THE POINT
For me, the point of Woodruff’s podcast wasn’t about the pointlessness of trying to be productive, or centered. It wasn’t about pointlessness at all. It wasn’t a woe-is-me tale of how my mornings are challenging or how life is holding me back from my great aspirations. Rather, it was kind of a weight off my shoulders.
For me, as for many of us, the reason we’re not rocking mornings like CEOs is because we are, as Woodruff describes herself, “multi-passionate.” We’ve got a lot going on, and we’re mostly doing the best we can. That morning workout, that Zen moment of inner peace, that complaint-free tooth-brushing happy place? Those are still worth aspiring to, just not worth beating ourselves up about if we don’t attain them. Besides, all those morning routines are airbrushed anyway ;)
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Streamlining a REAL Morning Routine
Teachers have the morning routine thing all figured out. There’s a set schedule of activities that happen at the same time, in the same order every morning. Everyone knows what to do, and there’s peer pressure to conform, because everybody’s doing it. As much as possible—at home or in the classroom—a regular routine makes things smoother. Not perfect, smoother.
Below are just a few other things that help our morning routine along:
1) A rule: You have to be dressed (all but shoes and coat) before you get to sit down for breakfast. To be honest, my son kinds of bucks this one, because he’s not big on breakfast, but it’s still better than the alternative…the Olympics of dawdling.
2) Sunrise breakfast cookies. No, I don’t feel awesome about feeding my children cookies for breakfast, but at least I’m feeding them breakfast, and these have chia in them, which absolves all sins. This is also a good car breakfast.
3) Speaking of doing things in the car…toddlers (who don’t spit yet) can brush teeth in the car (or stroller). Just watch out for bumps!
4) And speaking of brushing teeth, I haven’t tried this one yet, but a friend swears by Brush Monster, an app for turning tooth-brushing into a fun game.
5) The Go Green Wet Brush. Recyclable, pretty (it looks like a tropical leaf), designed for brushing wet hair (magical for post-bath toddlers with long, wind-tangled hair), also amazing for mama’s frizzy winter hair…somehow it just makes the static electricity disappear, the only hair product that has ever done this in my life. I’m not a “product” person at all, but after I bought one of these I wanted to buy one for everyone I know.
6) Toddler music. For when everyone is screaming. Also nice for the drive home from daycare (when everyone is screaming).
7) Tinted sunscreen. The lowest effort makeup that exists, with the added benefit of reducing anxiety about skin cancer.
8) Not sure why there’s so much dental hygiene happening in my car, but…those plastic flosser things. Horrible for the environment, a little bit gross, but a good use of time at a long stoplight.
9) Bathrobes. To be worn over work clothes until last possible moment—especially useful if you are still in the nursing/bottle/spitting up phase of life.
10) Bark collar. Woulda, shoulda, coulda.
What’s your morning routine, and how do you make it awesome…or at least, how do you make it through? Share in the Comments section below.
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