Becoming Grounded Before the Chaos of Back to School
Hi friends!
Anyone else feeling the angst that comes with kiddos going back to school? I will be the first to tell you that I have always dreaded the week of back to school! A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted this year to feel different.
If you at all resonant with this feeling, whether that be kids going back to school, or dealing with any kind of change within your current situation, I hope this will help you too!
I think it can be really individualized from person to person when asking the question, “What triggers the cascade of worry and overwhelm?”. For me it was a mixture of thinking about all of the tasks at hand before me: school supply shopping, making sure the kids have clothes that fit them, shoes, putting together lunches, figuring out extra curricular schedules and registrations, school drop off and pick up, and of course, just missing my girls!
After some thinking, I knew the two main things I needed to do was start tackling things on the list that I could tangibly check off, like the school supplies, extra curricular sign ups, etc, and then secondly, begin to thing about what routines I wanted to establish for our family this school year.
Keeping organizational systems and habits can make everything so much easier, but it takes time to get those systems and habits in place. So which habits make the biggest impact?
These are the top five things that we decided to reimplement this year;
Meal Prepping: Mornings are such a rush that any meal prep we can do for breakfast is a must! We are big breakfast people and side note, a sweet friend shared this oatmeal bake recipe that has my heart. I have literally made it every day for the past 5 weeks! If you want to try it out I will leave the recipe here! https://www.elisabethandbutter.com/blog/baked-oatmeal
The evenings feel like sacred time, because there is just not enough of it when the kids get home. If we are being honest that time gets taken up very quickly by homework, extracurricular activities, and of course, they still want time to play with their friends.
Maybe you don’t cook every night, but you know which nights make more sense to order in or hit the drive through. By planning some of these things out, it frees up some thinking space in our minds and will hopefully give more time together as a family, and less time figuring out what the plan is.
Shared Family Calendar: As you get those extra curricular activity schedules in go ahead and enter them into the family calendar. By the way, if you don’t use a family calendar I would highly recommend one! We personally use TimeTree and it has been great. Also, if you don’t have a set time to regularly practice rest, I would strongly encourage you to add even just one afternoon. I have found that the remainder of my working efforts go so much better when I take time to rest. And I promise you, I am not one to want to sit still!
Days of the Week Clothes Organizer: I am a big fan of picking out clothes for the week the during our Sunday reset. We use a five-day cubby for the little one and for the older one we just have a designated hanging section and start it from left to right (Monday-Friday). My girls actually really love this too! It helps the little one to feel excited in the morning when she gets to go and find her outfit and if we are being honest, it eliminates one more thing from the morning rush.
Scheduling Family Time: Looking ahead in the week and deciding to make Friday night pizza and movie night gives us all something to look forward to. It allows for some designated family time on the calendar. This makes it a little easier to get through the week, as we are all adjusting to not being together every day.
Intentionality: Lastly, we can be prepared in every way and have all the details written down, but life still happens sometimes. That brings me to my final and most important point. What grounds you the most? For me, it is knowing that the Lord is sovereign and I know I can always find peace in his Word.
I was encouraged by our Pastor, Jon, to take time to look away from the social media, from all of the things that influence me, or pull me one way or another, and to look to the thing that remains a firm foundation.
I hope that after reading this you feel encouraged to try a new routine or habit to make the transition back to school a little easier. More than that, I hope you can rest in knowing that there is someone greater than us in control.
I am here to cheer you on and help in any way that I can. If you find yourself needing help creating systems for things like art work, kids laundry, a space to actually meal prep, or the many other busy areas of the home, reach out!
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