My routines: a plog of a homeworking day

 

The blogboost challenge for 2nd half of October talks about routines and rituals.  I am not sure if I have much rituals but I'm sure I have a lot of routines. And working from home has become quite normal now so after all these months I have a bit of the same rhythm each day.    So here's a plog. 

Waking up:  

My alarm is at 7 AM and by then Jan is usually already up and goes upstairs to get the children out of their bed.  Kabouter tends to rush down, jump into the bathroom and as slow and procrastrinating he can be the rest of the day, he's often almost dressed by the time Jan and Beertje are down.

The little monster traditionally jumps on my bed and then crawls under the blanket with me.  Since the Corona lockdown, we are a little less rushed in the morning and Jan's always home so I got the habit to stay in bed waiting for this little boy to come next to me. We cuddle a bit, he plays with toys, we talk for a few minutes or I try to snooze.  That's truly our routine since last Spring. 

After 10 minutes or so Jan's alarm will kick in and if both musics play, he and I know we should start getting out of bed.   Kabouter is already downstairs by then and also Jan is almost ready when we enter the bathroom. 

The next 10 minutes I am trying to motivate the little one to get dressed. I do like to wait most of the days to get ready myself until I've worked him outside of the bathroom and I have the room all to myself in silence again.  Sometimes that works, sometimes he doesn't move at all and I get dressed first.  

I don't shower each day for the simple reason that I've never in my life washed my hair each day and I am not going to mess with shower caps or so.  So sometimes I wash at the sink which is just as fast and efficient.  

My daily products are deodorant, hydrating creme and perfume. 

Breakfast

Traditionally I arrive at the breakfast table as the last one, now that Jan doesn't travel.  He's already made the lunch boxes for the boys and I join the table after getting my first coffee of the day. 
On Monday we often eat some (deliberate) left-overs from the pastries from Sunday. 

After 8 AM I help rushing the children ready because usually by then they do anything but getting their shoes, bags and jacket.  Water bottles filled? Check.  Fluo jackets located? Check.  Shoes on? Check.  Left shoe on left foot and right shoe on right foot?  Oops, ok, we need to fix that. 

Either Jan or I walk the children to school.  Then it's time to clear the table, clear some of the toys to the side of the floor so we can pass during the day without breaking our legs. 

Time to work

Between 8.15-8.45 (earlier than when I 'd have to commute to work), I open the basement door to descend to our office space below the kitchen.  Since September I have installed a 2nd screen that I wouldn't be able to miss anymore.  It's a very comfortable well equipped spot and fortunately the webmeeting tools now allow you to choose your background so the storage behind my back is not quite an issue anymore. 

When Jan and I have meetings I come up sometimes to take some calls in the living room. it's quite cosy to work together at home almost full time now but it's difficult to sit next to each other when both of us have half of the time video calls. We disturb one another with noise distractions in each other's meetings easily.  But small calls we take on our phone while walking in the house and I can also have some easy meetings on my private laptop which finds itself in the living room.  Also coffee refills or other breaks are upstairs. 

At lunch I try to eat fresh homemade soup. Today I took a small walk after the meal because I had some space in my agenda that allowed this. Usually that is not the case at all...Lunch meetings are avoided but they exist.  But Jan has the good routine to have almost daily one or more walking meetings, so I see if I can try to pick up that routine.   In my most stressful days there's been days that I've not been outside at all in 48h, but that should not happen at all.  But hey, this lunch I made a nice tour around the block.   Trying to make that a routine in the future. 

At 4 PM, Jan picked up the children from school and I go and check out how they are doing before I head into my last meeting of the day. I'm pleasantly surprised that Kabouter already did his homework and they are both playing with their toys in a big game. 

On Mondays, I quit work to take the boys to their swimming classes, while Jan continues for some more meetings after he picked up the children from school. During this 2nd wave of the pandemic, this means that I have to get them changed into their swimshorts (under their pants obviously) before we leave.  After a few times now they've picked up the routine and know this should be done in a timely manner for us to leave on time.  We are allowed 5 minutes in the dressing cabines before and after the class and due to the contamination risk I try to be in there as less as possible. Unfortunately Beertje truly doesn't manage yet to get dressed all alone. 

During the class I've picked up the routine now to go for another walk...either back home to finish a few mails and then back but most of the time I make a little tour at the Park Abbey. Often it was the first time I got outside of the house so this is necessary. Until last year we always stayed in the sports center to chat with the other parents, but now I get outside asap only to show up again when the children are already back in the dressing room where I dry off Beertje quickly and get his clothes back on. 

Bedtime

By the time we're back, Jan has served dinner and then after dinner there is not much time left anymore before it's bedtime.  I phone daily with my mother now whose social contacts have also been drastically reduced and I clear the table and kitchen. 

Jan and the boys already go upstairs to go brush their teeth etc and then I follow.  In bed there is some reading time after which I first put Beertje in bed.   

I always carry him down a floor once more to use the bathroom... a small moment we hang in each arms tightly and I get souvenirs of carrying my babies in the past. Then we have a sweet KKK moment: a cross (kruisje), a kiss and a hug (knuffel) before the light goes out.  And then that gets repeated in his brother's room. 

Back downstairs (possibly after a few more chores in the house) , the pauzed tv waits traditionally for me to watch Thuis with some delay and I spend most of the rest of the evening in the sofa with my feet up and my laptop on my lap.  And then I call it a day around 10PM. 

(check here the resemblance of my Spring lockdown plogs)