Mom Hacks
So much to do, so little time. Here are a few mom hacks to help the busiest moms get through the day and the week ahead so we can focus on building our empires:
Look at the calendar to map put week ahead. It seems like a no-brainer but to sit down and look at the calendar on Sunday night helps to set the intentions for the week ahead. Of course we are looking at what we have to do: conference calls and meetings for work, cooking and cleaning for the household, paying bills and organizing finances. But it also gives us the time to pencil in family days, date nights and girl times. We all know we need these times too.
Schedule help in advance. Looking at the calendar at the start of the week also lets us take a closer look at who has to be where, when and nail down logistics. We can easily see if we need an extra set of hands and call on family and friends and babysitters when we can't juggle it all on our own.
Meal plan over the weekend. It initially seems ambitious. If you are anything like us, you have often bought groceries with the intent to plan ahead, pack lunches and have dinner ready when you come home at the day only to throw away wilted produce at the end of the week. We suggest preparing a few staples that you can "repurpose" throughout the week. For example, in our house we tend to have a chicken in the refrigerator so we can have chicken with vegetables and then use leftovers for tacos or a chicken soup later in the week. Our kids like spaghetti, which is great for us because we can make a bolognese and keep half in the refrigerator for the week and then the other half in the freezer for a few weeks later. Having several meals stocked in the refrigerator helps save time in the evenings so we can spend more time enjoying dinner with your family, playing games, reading stories and splashing in the bathtub before bedtime.
Pack lunches after in the evening. Now that you have meal panned, you can easily make lunch in the evening after dinner. We just recently added this into the routine and it makes the mornings so much smoother.
Wake up before the kids. This may be one of the hardest ones. We need our sleep. The days are long and we can relate to all of you who cant wait until kids are in bed and want to get in bed with a book and a glass of wine or a remote control and a DVR full of shows and movies to watch. It is hard enough to have to wake when the kids wake up so the idea that we need to wake up even earlier can be a hard pill to swallow. We find, however, that in the quiet of the morning before the mayhem we can make ourselves a coffee and get breakfast on the table without the crazy that typically comes with getting everyone where they need to go on time.
What are some of your mom hacks to save time and be more productive at home and at work? We know you haven't gotten this far without any ticks of the trade.
How to Make the Most of Your Days When School is Out
As we watched the news and followed as the pandemic became more ever-present, one of our greatest fears was the closing of schools. I am sure parents everywhere had the same thoughts:
How will I work during the day?
What will I do to keep the kids busy at home?
How will the kids stay on track with their school work?
This is what I learned in my house:
We are all just making it one day at a time, determining the plan for the day over breakfast. We have a list of family projects and we discuss and decide together what project we want to take on each day. When we complete a family project, Hendrix is proud of his handiwork and we are proud that we accomplished more than changing our kids out of their pajamas and feeding them three times a day.
There is no telling how long this will be our reality but for now, we are all doing the best we can.
I am not going through my to-do lists as quickly as I thought I would. And that’s ok with me. We are forced to slow down and realize we have have plenty of time to get work done so we we are living day-by day.
Our children are not going to be rocket scientist when they go back to school. And that’s ok with us too. There were a lot of ambitious parents sharing a draft schedule of activities to keep their children busy while school is not in session. We don’t wake up at 7:00 a.m and go through a strict schedule to keep everyone on track but our kids seem to be adjusting to their new normal nicely and that is all we can hope for.
Here are a few of our favorite family activities:
Making our family tree - We started by identifying who should be represented, finding the photos and mapping out the tree. After placing everyone in their rightful place, Hendrix called family historians and asked about the full names and birth years of members of family tree who passed away before he was born. We finished the project by decorating it with an apple tree. We suggest making your own family tree because its gives kids the opportunity to understand how your family members are related and, as a bonus, they get to know more about them by asking other family members for details about family they never had the opportunity to meet.
Baking - We can’t be the only ones who have a hard time getting our littles to eat green vegetables. We experimented with baking sweet spinach muffins. With Hendrix measuring and adding ingredients to the mixer and pouring the contents into muffin tins, we were pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get him to eat spinach. For any parents looking for a way to sneak vegetables in to your little’s diet, we recommend muffins!
Designing a city of cardboard boxes - We saved cardboard boxes for about a week before we started to decorate them to replicate different buildings throughout our city. We then created a city of main streets and neighborhoods with cul de sacs. We enjoyed talking through both building design and city planning. There were so many opportunities for creativity to come through.
Creating a family portrait - who doesn’t love a family portrait. This allowed Hendrix to demonstrate how he sees each member of our family. He explained many of his artistic choices and it was exciting to see ourselves through his lens.
While we dreaded the long days at home with our kids with no school days or weekend activities to break it up, we have to admit that this quarantine is providing unexpected quality time. We, admittedly, don’t fill our days with meaningful activities. If you were to peak in our window at times you would see children watching movies while eating snacks, coloring at the table while we drink our coffee or playing with their toys while we try to binge-watch the most talked about series with a glass of wine.
Let us know some of your favorite activities. We seem to have plenty of time!
Introducing The Keyes Collective
As a “momprenuer”, mother to sons Hendrix and Lenox and founder of The Keyes Collective, Lola Keyes Wood will share her vision for “having it all” on the blog.
Whether she is giving tips for how to juggle home and work, a project that she’s passionate about or a snapshot into her family life, Lola will be sharing plans and goals of The Keyes Collective while giving behind-the-scenes access to her life as mom and entrepreneur.