Category Archives: parenthood

parenthood, randomness 2 Comments

Morning Routine

I’ve never been a punctual person when it comes to mornings. Unless there’s something out-of-the-ordinary happening that day, my brain just doesn’t register the urgency of the morning alarm. It’s not until I really have to pee or my brain is finally awake enough to realize OH SHIT I REALLY NEED TO GET UP NOW that I finally throw the covers back and pry myself up out of bed.

I lay out my clothes the night before, always. Otherwise, I’d wake up Aaron by turning on the light, and I’d take even longer to get ready, besides.

On non-daycare days (aka Daddy Days), my schedule already looks like:

  • getting myself ready: 15-30 minutes, depending on whether I shower (every other day).
  • getting Connor up and changing his diaper: 10-15 minutes.
  • getting Connor to eat breakfast: 15-20 minutes.
  • getting Connor back upstairs, reading a book, singing a song, saying goodbye: 15-20 minutes.
  • commute to work: 20 minutes.

On daycare days, the breakfast and goodbye portion of the program is replaced with getting Connor dressed, getting our stuff together and us out the door, and daycare dropoff, so I only get to work 20 minutes late instead of truly embarrassingly late.

If I want to get to work on time on Daddy Days, I need to get up by 6:30am, and get Connor up by 7 at the latest. As it stands now, I generally get myself up at 7:10 after some mental cajoling (my alarm first goes off somewhere between 6:30 and 6:45am). I walk into Connor’s bedroom around 7:30, and he usually complains that he doesn’t want to get up.

Perhaps I need to back up the start of Connor’s bedtime routine even farther, from 7pm to 6:30, to have him actually in bed ready to sleep by 8pm? Then we’d be eating dinner and going almost immediately upstairs for bathtime, with no playtime beforehand. That wouldn’t fly. More reasonable would be for me to keep tabs on the time during the bathtime and bedtime routine, and keep things on track for a one-hour routine instead of an hour fifteen or an hour and a half.

Maybe I’ll just worry about getting myself up on time first.