What is your nighttime routine with the boys, and baths, dinner, your & Lare's dinner? Like, step by step with approximate times? I need guidance -- I'm failing (& getting later by the week) with just the one kid & Mr. Gleemonex.
Funny you should ask this question on this of all weeks, Gleem. It just so happens Larry and I posted our schedule on the refrigerator Sunday night after seeing our routine (and our kids) sliding off the rails. I’m hardly one to be doling out parenting advice—but the schedule below really works for us.
5:30-6:30
Larry makes and feeds the boys dinner, while I go for a run.
6:30-7:30
Larry gives the boys a tub while I shower and get my nails done (I have to have a fresh manicure every day for work. It’s one of my things).
7:30- 8:30
Larry is muttering something from the other room, but I can’t hear him over the sound of Sven massaging my tired, tired, muscles. (Sven is one of my guilty pleasures! He is not actually Swedish. He is from Cleveland.) One of the kids is scratching on the door (very distracting, but I try to be patient and ignore) Oh! They want to kiss me good night. Is it that time already?!
8:30-8:31
I kiss the boys good night and tell them how much I love them. I really try to make this a quiet, special time with NO interruptions. (They soak up my affection like little sponges. So cute!)
8:31-9:00
I sip a glass of wine and unwind with a magazine or a book while Larry finishes reading the boys their bedtime stories (HE IS TAKING FOREVER. AS USUAL. I try to have patience with this man, but it is hard. HELLO! HUNGRY FOR DINNER DOWN HERE! I RAN LIKE SIX MILES TONIGHT).
9:00-10:00
Finally Larry comes down and starts cooking my special vegetarian dinner. It is late, but I try not to make him feel bad about it. He works hard too. And it’s important that we have this time together after rushing around all evening. We don’t even have to talk (for some reason he doesn’t ever seem to want to talk … ?).
10:00
EXHAUSTED. Get pajamas on while Larry cleans the kitchen.
10:15
Even though I am very tired, I sit down with Larry and tell him all about my day. (Communication is SO SO important in a marriage! Can’t stress this enough!)
10:45 Lights out. Reflect on how wonderful it is to be married to a man who understands that we are EQUALS.
Now I just need some of Suburban Turmoil’s trolls to come over here and take that seriously. In fact, our summer schedule in the evenings goes more like this:
5:30-6:30 I go for a run while Larry feeds the boys.
6:30-7:15 I handle dessert negotiations, clean up the kitchen and hang out with the boys while Larry works out or practices guitar.
7:15 The boys and I take Sean for his walk. Larry performs some kind of outside magic to make vegetables and things grow there.
7:30-8:00 I give the boys a bath, get their PJs on, brush teeth, and lay out their clothes for the next morning. Larry starts dinner for the two of us.
8:00-8:30/8:45 I read to the boys in their room.
8:45 Larry and I eat dinner. Talk. Clean up. Retreat to the living room and read until we go to bed (around 10:30).
Because Larry is home with the boys much of the day (he teaches summer school in the mornings), he can throw in a load of laundry or straighten up--things we usually have to cram into the evenings during the school year, along with homework and paying bills and recycling the mounds of worksheets Gus brings home in his backpack. So the summer routine is a lot more comfortable and leisurely than the other 10 months of this year.
Ask me this question again in September and it'll be a whole new ball game.