Monday, April 6, 2020

Our Corona-Routine

I've written before about our morning and bedtime routines, and given how weird things are right now, I thought it'd be fun (word used loosely) to talk about our new routine with everyone home all day, every day!

One of the awesome perks of being home is not having to get up at 6:30 to get the kids ready for school. Brent also isn't starting work QUITE as early, so we've been sleeping in. Normally he leaves the house between 6:30-7:00, and now he usually gets up at 7:30 and heads straight to the office, and I get up about 8:00 - pending children waking us up.

8:30 - girls are up for sure, I'm making breakfast, starting to work, and the girls are playing. 

9:00-12:00 - Trent gets up a little later and is LOVING life. He wants to earn his screen time as quickly as possible, so he wants to get his outside time done and his school work done. I usually try to get Drew started on her school work too, which is a lot more hands-on from me because her teacher asked me to give her all of the 2nd grade work {holla!}. We try to do a lot of work outside. So this time is Brent and I trying to juggle work, school work, and keeping the kids happy. The morning seems to be a little easier with happy attitudes. 

Mon/Fri - Trent has a zoom class meeting from 7:55-8:30. Drew has a zoom class meeting from 11:00-11:30. Trent also has an individual meeting with his teacher Thursday afternoon, and Paige also meets with her class on Wednesday afternoons.

12:00 - The kids eat lunch about noon every day, and then they usually get screen time. I am trying to incorporate a chore before they get their screen time, but that usually needs help from me, and I am fresh out of help to give for something else, so this isn't happening super regularly. The kids get anywhere from 1 to 2 hours of screen time.

Sometimes Paige takes a nap and she gets her screen time when she wakes up. We're at the point where if she takes a nap, she's up forever at bedtime, so we don't make her take a nap every day. If she's especially crabby, we make it happen, and she'll sleep for about 1-1.5 hours.

I have some guilt about the amount of screen time the kids are getting right now, but honestly, it's the one chance Brent and I have to be super productive and focused. 

2:00 - By this point screens are usually off, maybe 2:30, and the kids are playing again. Drew FINALLY learned to ride her bike last week, yay!, so we try to also ride bikes in the street and I can work in the driveway. Our street is a horseshoe off the main road that runs through our neighborhood, so our street is really quiet. We also use our blow-up pool when the weather is nice - which was NOT this past week ugh. Basically anything to have them be active and happy.

We work and try to manage the kids and finish up any school work we want to do between now and roughly 5:00. Brent usually works a little longer. The afternoon gets tricky with less patience from everyone. Drew is really whiny and needy with her school work if we don't get it all done in the morning.

6:00 - We typically feed the kids about 6:00, and if the weather is nice we go back outside after dinner. Drew is OBSESSED with riding her bike right now, and what's funny is it's too small, so she looks so funny riding it. We need to get her a new one pronto.

7:00 - We start to get the girls ready for bed here. If Paige hasn't had a nap, we need to get her into bed by 7:30, but if she's napped she can stay up later. Either during dinner or after dinner I read to Trent and Drew. I can't wait until Paige is asleep most days since sometimes that is late. It's really fun right now because Trent and Drew are enjoying each other's books so I read some from each book.

8:00-9:00 - We get everybody into bed. During 'regular' school, Drew is in bed before 8:00, but she's been sleeping in so her bedtime is a little flexible too. At some point, we just basically tell Trent to leave us alone, but he might stay up until 10:00.

From that point on, Brent and I watch TV - we just finished Tiger King and he is going to restart Ozark to watch it with me - or I read, and we stay up way too late - at least midnight every night ha.

And that's our COVID-19 routine!



3 comments:

Natasha said...

We too have been staying up later and getting up later, except the kids have been getting up earlier for some reason that I don't understand.

I'm impressed with all the outside time and the lack of screen time in your schedule. It's been nice (but chilly) here so we're not outside as much as I would like. And the kids have a couple of hours of screen time in the morning and an hour or so in the evening. (And this "screen time" is defined as "do whatever you want" screen time. I'm not counting all the other screen time during the day/in the evenings that is family dictated or connecting with school friends.)

I should write a post about our routine but honestly, we haven't found one yet. Official School directed learning starts this week but the expectation is only five hours per week for each of my kids so there won't be much of it. Yay?

Lindsay C said...

I can only imagine how tough it is going to be for us ALL when we have to go back to getting up early again for work. I personally feel fortunate that I work from home full-time so its not a big change for me EXCEPT that I don't really leave the house at all these days and its a BIG challenge for me. I can't wait for the shelter-at-home orders to be lifted so I can get back to going to coffee shops and the gym. What is one thing you're looking forward to once shelter-at-home orders are lifted??

Emily said...

That was fun reading about your routine. And YAYYY for evening outside walks. Also I’m waiting for the glorious day that one of my three children decides to sleep in like Trent does. Probably won’t happen until college. :(