Life experience – When your life passing you by!
I remember the evolution of my life.
I will share a vague reconstruction of those periods.
I will sound negative and sorry for myself, but I want to say immediately that you should not.
I am trying to convey the life busyness, but I do not regret any of those periods and I would do it all over if I were given the choice.
As I will explain Covid has changed my thinking, but I was happy in my pre-covid life even though when reading the below you feel that I am complaining.
But to be honest I was feeling extremely tired and overwhelmed though…now here are the routines
Typical days pre-Covid pre-children
The days of my youth where you are single or in couple but without the responsibility of the children.
You get out of bed, go downstairs, and sit quietly with a coffee and thinking of what is to come.
Let's not go into the work routine, we will just assume that Monday to Friday 9 to 5 you are working.
In my case I was blessed with no commute and therefore once work is over, 15 minutes later I was available for my other activities.
I do realise that I am blessed as many people would have between 30 minutes to 2 hours commute making their evening much shorter than mine, but we all have different blessings, and this is one of mine!
So my choice was simple at the time as I only had to concern myself with my activities.
I used to go home and here would have been my hobbies.
· 17:30 - Walk the dog(s) between 30 minutes and 1 hour
· 18:30 - Light dinner - I used to be a little lazy and cereals were a good option!
· 19h - Sport or community meetings
o Could be martial art, Zumba, Parish, neighborhood meetings whatever was on the agenda that week
· 21h - Cleaning routine
· 22h - Winning down with T.V, craft and/or books
And over and over until the weekend
Saturday was deep cleaning, meeting with friends
Sunday was relaxing and planning
All that was of course, depending on my wants, needs and how I felt, in the end I had no one to answer to.
My house was spotless and even though I was doing lots of activities I was rarely feeling overwhelmed and if I did, I was just taking a day or night off!
Typical days pre-Covid post-children
I was lucky enough to find a partner and to welcome two children within a 3 years period.
I am very pleased of the different in between them as they really were able to play together and keep one another busy without having to involve us all the time, yet again another blessing.
Now once again, we are not going into the work routine and once again assume that we work Monday to Friday 9 to 5.
New routine once you have children under 5 years old
· Morning
· Dress and feed the kids
· Take the dog(s) for 5 minutes’ walk
· Run to day care trying not to be late for work
See blog - Parenting - Dressing and feeding your child!
· Evening
· 17h30 – go and pick up the kids from day care
· 17h45 – prepare dinner for the family
· 18h30 – walk to dog(s) for about 20 minutes
· 19h – bath time and prepare all you need for the following day
· 20h try to put the child to bed
· 21h - Cleaning routine until you pass out around midnight
· If you are lucky eventually you get a full night sleep
New routine once you have children over 5 years old
· Morning
· Wake up and drag children out of bed
· Make sure they have all they need for the day for school
o Lunch box is always fun to do
· Take the dog(s) for 5 minutes’ walk
· Repeat over and over again to
o Get dress
o Have breakfast
o Brush teeth
o Put your shoes on
o Put your coat
o Where is your lunch box…
o What paper? How come it is due today? Why could you not tell me before…
· Evening
· 17h30 – get the kids back
· 17h45 bring one to an activity
· 18h bring the other one for an activity
· 18h15– prepare dinner for the family
· 18h30 – walk to dog(s) for about 5 minutes
· 18h45– pick up first child
· 19h – pick up second child
· 19h15 diner
· 19h45 bath time
· 20h try to put the child to bed
· 22h – Finally have the last child in bed
· 22h15 clean for 20 minutes before collapsing
And over and over until the weekend
Weekend
· Saturday
· 8h walk the dogs for an hour
· 9h wake up kids and well same as before get them fed and dressed
· 10h activity 1 for one of them
· 11h first play date of the day
· 12h30 lunch
· 14h birthday party – because they are so busy there are at least one birthday party per Saturday
· 18h home for some dinner – bath time and family games
· 20h try to calm them down for bedtime because with all the activities and sugar they are wired to the max
· 21h sit down for movie and a glass of wine
· Sunday
· Cleaning day because let’s face it nothing has been done pretty much for the last 6 days
Typical days post-Covid post-children
Covid was obviously a chock to the world as the last global pandemic was a century ago with the Spanish flu.
Funny name when you think of it knowing that it started in Texas but Spain was the country that alarm the world.
At the time, there were no social media and no sharing of information like we did which explains why people were not confine like we were.
Good or bad, the confinement was an experience which allowed people to stop and rethink their life and their pace of life.
I know I did, slowing down made me realise that I was not living my life but flying through my life.
I was running so much between the kids’ activities and my activities that I was tired and overwhelmed very often, burning the candle by both ends.
Now will there be week where life is a little bit more hectic than the normal week, definitely as life will happen and we will get used to be out and about once again.
But I definitely see life differently, not that my previous life was bad but having had that opportunity to press the reset button I will definitely organise myself much differently.
First thing was to reduce the kids’ activities to a maximum of 3 per week.
By doing that we were able to add some activities back for ourselves and obviously having older children will allow this to happen as well.
I now focus on the activities that I am doing and compartment much more and prioritise differently.
Typical week now, morning still a little bit the same really so no change there!
· Monday
· 17h30 finish work
· Walk the dog for 30 minutes
· 18h prepare diner and cleaning routine
· 19h dinner and family game and hubby Gymanatic
· 20h bath and winning down watching TV
· 22h book time
· Tuesday
· 17h30 finish work
· Walk the dog for 30 minutes
· 18h prepare diner and cleaning routine
· 19h family work out in the park
· 21h bath and winning down watching TV
· 22h book time
· Wednesday
· 17h30 finish work
· Walk the dog for 30 minutes
· 18h prepare diner and cleaning routine
· 19h my work out in the GYM
· 21h bath and winning down watching TV
· 22h book time
· Thuersday
· 17h30 finish work
· Walk the dog for 30 minutes
· 18h prepare diner and cleaning routine and kids activities
· 19h writing my blog
· 21h bath and winning down watching TV
· 22h book time
· Friday
· 15h30 finish work
· Walk the dog for 30 minutes
· 16h athleticism for the family
· 19h take away and family movie
· 22h book time
· Saturday
· 9h Walk the dog for 1 hour
· 10h family park time
· 12h lunch
· 13h kids activities
· 14h free time and cleaning time for me
· Night out with friends
· 22h book time
· Sunday
Relax and swimming day
I do not know what you think but when I look back at my life before and after there is no debate that the now is much better than the before and it took a pandemic to make us realise than running like headless chicken is not a way of living and that it is better to do less but at least to enjoy much more what we have.
