Changes: They are a’coming

We will very shortly be going through a transition in our lives. Not just with our morning routine, but with our bedtime routines. It doesn’t help that we have just started trying to establish a gym routine or the fact that I hate routines to begin with.

With the kids starting their ‘new’ school we will all be going through several changes. I know we can expect them to need a transitional period to new teachers, new kids, new learning materials, but it is just our ‘other’ stuff that will be swung into disarray until we can adjust to the changes.

If we want to start with mornings and follow through until night our days will change in the following ways:

Currently, we leave for work/preschool at 7:15 to get everyone where they need to be by 8 am. We are looking forward to having to leave the house at 6:45 in order for everyone to make it to where they need to be by 8 am (and by everyone, I really mean me). I know 30 minutes doesn’t sound like much, but it’s half an hour! And to be honest, we are NOT morning people, so it might as well be two hours.

Breakfast will be another hassle that we will need to learn to navigate. I drop the kids off at preschool and the school actually feeds them breakfast. I don’t have to pack them anything. However, I will be dropping them off at 7 am at their new school, and they will have an hour of Chapter 2 before school actually starts. So I can either feed them at home (which did you read we are NOT morning people so probably won’t happen) or send breakfast with them.

Lunch is another meal that was provided by the preschool. The new school only serves hot lunches on Monday. The rest of the week we are forced to send sack lunches with the kids. I’m not used to packing lunches for anyone but myself, and lately I’ve been slacking on that even. Both kids have lunch boxes, and we have a few reusable snack bags, but I need more. AND I need to revamp our grocery lists to include lunch and breakfast items for 5 days a week.

At preschool both kids are used to taking a 2 hour nap. The unfortunate part of both the preschool and kindergarten programs is that there is no such time allotted for nap time. The Girl had some transition issues in January and actually fell asleep at the end of the day on several occasions. But we also had several days a week when she would fall asleep on the 15 minute ride home with Daddy.

Which brings us to the after school pick-up changes. Since their preschool has been right next to my work, I’ve been the sole parent in charge of pick-up and drop-off. Once school starts, Hubby has to take on the pick-up responsibilities. On occasion I will have to leave work early to pick them up, but normally Hubby will be picking the kids up.

Because Hubby will be picking both kids up from school, we need to buy booster seats for both kids. His truck is too small to fit both carseats on the bench seat, so the smaller booster seats will need to be purchased so they can both still be in car seats (can we just add that to the other back to school list?). Also, their carseats will be in the van since I drop them off every morning, and their back up carseats hit the 5-year old need to destroy mark this year- plus they are HUGE and wouldn’t both fit anyway.

Now, should we even try to talk about a gym routine? I’m not sure what this will look like until we can transition to what we are used to. But I foresee us not going to the gym 5 weeknights anymore.

Bedtime routines will also have to change. Since the kids take 2 hour naps during the day they aren’t sleepy at ‘bedtime’ and the Boy actually doesn’t like to go to bed until about 11. The Girl will usually lay down and go to sleep around 9, however when she was in school she sometimes went to bed at 7 pm. So we will need a way to transition bedtime to be sometime around 8, especially since the Boy won’t have the hour commute to sleep on the way to preschool anymore that he is used to.

It feels like almost every aspect of our day will have to change in some way with the starting of school. I know it won’t be an easy transition, because most transitions aren’t easy for us. But it will be one we have to make regardless of how difficult or daunting it may seem.

Tell me: Do you expect any major routine changes with the start of the new school year?