Day 1: Its
5:15am and the baby is awake. My husband rolled over in an attempt to see the
alarm while I sit upright and start to gain my bearings. I head to the kitchen
to make a bottle for him. I change and
feed the baby and put him in the playpen to play. My morning has started. At
this point it is almost 6am, and I can either shower, have a quiet time, or
unload the dishwasher. Before jumping in
the shower, I chatted with my husband for a few minutes about our grocery list.
Then give him a kiss before I take a shower and he goes off to work. By the time I finish it is near 6:40 which
gives me just enough time to eat breakfast and unload the dishwasher before I
have to get the kids up at 7:15. Once again my quiet time has been pushed out
by my morning tasks.
Day 2: I wake up
at 5:30 am- And start get ready for the day. I manage to shower, eat breakfast,
drink coffee, and have a full quiet time while all children are still tucked
snuggly in their beds. Prior to the children getting up, I even have a chance
to fold a load of laundry, unload the dishwasher, layout the kids clothing for
the day, and set out the breakfast (including making the baby’s bottle and
cereal). It is a glorious morning, and I feel like an awesome supermom.
These two extremes illustrate that anything can happen when
you are a mom. It doesn’t even matter how many or how old your kids are. Every
day is different, and being flexible is the only way to stay sane. I used to be
really hard on myself about not being able to fit everything in that I wanted
in the morning, particularly a quiet time.
Making time for a prayer and Bible time can be hard especially
when mornings are so busy and often start so abruptly. I prefer having some
time for myself in the morning to get my bearings in the quiet of the morning
without the kids being awake. This is the time I usually prefer doing a quiet
time, but it seems more times than not it gets crowded out by other items on my
to do list. It seems that I may need to
rethink my routine so that I don’t feel so overwhelmed in the morning. Mornings
are so hard when you have a lot to fit in before the kids wake up. It’s even
harder if you have to get everyone out the door by a certain time.
My new plan when the morning is hectic is that I’m going to
try to do a short quiet time after my kids go down for their naps after lunch.
This is typically the time I call “quiet time” in my house this summer where I
send the kids to separate parts of the house to either read, or color quietly.
Though the morning time is ideal prior to the kids waking up, at this stage of
motherhood I need to fit it in when I can.
“Quiet Time”- At
this stage of motherhood, the times when my house is actually quiet.
Sometimes first thing in the morning is the only time of day when it is quiet.
However, other times the naptime is the only time it is quiet. The principle of
having a quiet time is an opportunity to sit down and actually spend time in my
Bible and prayer for a few minutes. Once the day has started, I have to force
my brain to slow down. Often, I get distracted by things like the phone
ringing, or by social media.
Social Media- How
much time was I spending on social media during the day and when was I using it
the most? My answer to this question was during my children’s naptime. While I
was not always constantly on my phone, I often watch YouTube videos of news
clips, or my favorite channels as a way to take advantage of the quiet while I
folded laundry, washed dishes, or cleaned the kitchen. Even if I found a free moment where I was
able to sit down, I didn’t usually do this without my phone.
My new goal is to
put my phone away for the first hour of naptime so that I do my quiet time (if
I had not previously done it as part of my regular morning routine). If I
previously have done my quiet time in the morning I still want to make use of
this time by taking the time to read a book, or write in my journal.
Lesson: Choose
your priorities but being flexible will allow your priorities to match where
you are in your stage of motherhood.
This post is linked up this week at http://www.lifeoffaithblog.com/
This post is linked up this week at http://www.lifeoffaithblog.com/
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