Week 2 Blog- We’ve Got This!
Hello and welcome to week 2 of Boss Bitch Mommy. Thank you so much for those of you who have come back for another week. I want to express my gratitude for the continued support. I hope this last week has been treating you all well. Let’s dive in!
This week I am pulling up to my desk in comfy leggings and a cozy sweatshirt drinking a fruit smoothie and water. My snack was a handful of chocolate covered cranberries. Yum! I’d love to hear some snack and drink choices that people partake in when reading. Reach out via message and let me know if you’d like. What have some of your struggles been this week? It seems like when we figure out the answers to one struggle, another one pops up. This week, my main struggle has been keeping a routine.
Let’s face it; COVID really messed up our routines. Weather you had an iron clad routine, a more laid back one, or hardly one at all, I think it’s safe to say that most of us had one. Our kids had them. They went to school to see their friends and we saw ours. We saw family. We felt like we had more time and energy to accomplish the things we really needed to get done. At least that’s how I felt. Now, I feel like a chicken with my head cut off, and I don’t know where I’m going. The kids don’t go to public school anymore. Instead, they’re in the house wanting to play video games all day and eat snacks! I consider myself lucky enough to work from home so I can be here with them, but how do you manage work, teaching homeschool, making sure your snack cupboards aren’t constantly getting raided, making sure everyone’s still getting out for some exercise, and keeping everyone overall happy? How do we squeeze in our personal time? It’s not just us with kids facing these struggles. People are starting to feel a little cramped with their partners. This, in my opinion, is natural. This doesn’t make us bad parents, partners, children, family or friends. Our routines, as we knew them, have drastically changed. We’re trying to keep up with the newest rule we must follow, the newest change we must make. It gets to be a lot. It is a lot. My suggestion? We need to work on getting a routine back. In my household, my husband and I are both fortunate enough to still be working. That has stayed the same for us. Everything else is different. My husband goes out for work, so he maintains the normal banker’s hours. My kids have all of their classwork online right now, and they have different rules to follow. My son needs to be logged in at certain times to still technically go to class. My daughter has a list of assignments she needs to do throughout the day. Mom (yours truly), works in the attached garage 10 hours a day. Routines are not really a thing right now. It has thrown us off so much. At this point, I want to scream. It’s a good day when we can accomplish all of the homework that needs to be finished. It’s an even better day when the kids do their chores without us asking about a million times. The kids used to have physical school, come home, do homework, have game/free time, family time, bath time, and bed. I’m sure we had struggles, but they seem so far away now. They were in bed by 8:30-9. Now, it’s a win if they’re in bed by 9:30-10! Asking them to get their homework done and some cleaning done in the WHOLE day is completely unfathomable to them. Mom and dad work, clean, make dinner, and I work on business and the blog. Who else is facing similar struggles? Who else feels like they can’t possibly get all of the things done in the day? Here’s what I’m doing to try and overcome this.
I’m rolling up my sleeves and returning the routine back to the household. Let me tell you that we’ve already tried different routines. We just haven’t found one that has stuck yet. We need to keep trying until we find what works. I have changed work hours around, my husband has taken some time off to help, and we’ve had one trial and error after another. This is hard folks. We owe it to ourselves and our children/partners etc., to get a sense of routine so we can get some normalcy. Here’s what I have so far: First off, I’m including the kids on ideas. It has been suggested, that kids tend to follow routines, schedules etc. more, when they’re included in the planning. So that’s step 1. We all sit down, throw out ideas, and compromise, until we reach something that we all feel comfortable with. Next, I have printed off schedules and utilized planners. It sounds like a lot of work, but it’s worth it. There are so many free templates online to use. There’s a ton of planners available in the local stores. You can even manage a nice schedule in your smart phones or in excel in your gmail. There are a lot of resources for schedules. I write mine out every day, and the family has theirs as well. It’s not always 100%. There will be off days. There will be days where someone’s not feeling good, or life just throws a wrench into your plans. There may even be days where you don’t feel like following your schedule. That’s totally ok. Something I’m bad at, is overloading my schedule. I need to work, clean the whole house, make sure I’m getting family time in, doing business, running a bake sale? All in one day? No. Start small. My favorite printable schedule breaks it down by the day and you list your: “Must Do’s”, “Should Do’s”, “Would Like To Do’s”, and “Others Need From Me”. Pick 3-4 things in each category. That one really breaks it down into different needs. That one also keeps me from overloading myself. I’ve also found that my kids like me printing these off for them too for homework and chores. My husband could take it or leave it. He has it all up in his head. Next comes the hardest part: The follow through. It takes time. Not one day, not one week, maybe not even one month. You’ll get there though. Keep working. Don’t give up. I’m still working on mine. We can absolutely get there. We’re doing our best.
I wanted to take a minute and talk about self-care this week too. I know this is getting pretty lengthy at this point, but this is important. Who else has put themselves on the back burner? For some maybe it’s more recent, and for some it’s been much longer. I’ve been one of the biggest offenders of this. When I became wife and mother, they came first. A lot of us do this. Why is self-care so hard to do for ourselves? I know we all have the world on our shoulders right now, but we need to put some of that extra time and love into ourselves. One of my closest friends, who’s actually really good at self-care always says to me: “How can I take care of everyone around me and those who rely on me, if I can’t take care of myself”. It’s a simple statement, but it’s an absolutely accurate one. So, with all of the negative that has occurred during this crazy long year, one good thing has come from it: I’m taking care of me more. And guess what? It feels amazing. I know you can do it too. You deserve it. Whether you are a parent, spouse, partner, caretaker, friend, etc. you need time for you too. Don’t think you can do it? I’m here to tell you that you absolutely can. I didn’t think I ever had time to with everything going on. I started small. I started reading for 15 minutes at a time. I started going for a run regularly, walks, I started to journal for 15 minutes at a time, meditate, watch bad tv, eat junk food while binging a show, taking a bubble bath while I read a book and ate chips and salsa! I started not only doing it more frequently, but I changed it up. It doesn’t have to be something big, and it doesn’t even have to cost money. Start making yourself a priority too. Encourage those around you to do the same. Encourage your kids to have alone time or do something relaxing to recharge, because let’s face it, they’re struggling too. There’s nothing wrong with taking ourselves off of the back burner, even if it’s just for a little bit. As “The Captain” says from the podcast “True Crime Garage”: Treat Yo Self.
That’s it for week 2. I guess I had a bit more to say than I thought. I hope you’re enjoying the blog so far. I would absolutely love to start hearing from everyone: Feedback, suggestions, just to say hi, share any struggles you’d like to talk about. Go ahead and send me a message on the website here. I’ll do my best to answer you as soon as I can. Thank you for sticking with me so far. I’ll see everyone next week.
*Side note: I’m changing the pricing plans around a bit this week. I’m having 3 plans now that are priced better and are more straightforward. Please check it out. Thanks everyone!