Darlynn: [00:00:03] Hello, hello, hello. This is the Become A Calm Mama podcast, and I'm your host, Darlynn Childress. I've titled this episode "Simplifying Your Life," which is a pretty grand concept, right? You might be thinking, wait, you're going to simplify my whole life? I'm not, actually.
Darlynn: [00:00:25] I'm going to share my routine from when my kids were in elementary school. They're older now. One is about to go to college and the other is a senior in high school, so of course our rhythm looks very different. But in those elementary and middle school years, I ran kind of a tight ship.
Darlynn: [00:00:54] I had established a very peaceful, easy rhythm for my family. We could get places on time, I wasn't always forgetting things, and I just didn't feel that stressed about the routine of life. I've realized that's probably one of my natural gifts or skill sets.
Darlynn: [00:01:23] As I've coached lots and lots of moms through the years, I've realized that not everybody thinks that way, in time or in systems and patterns. And that's fine. You don't have to be like that, and there's no reason for you to become a different person.
Darlynn: [00:01:43] But I've noticed in some of my coaching sessions that if I sit with a mom and guide her through a day or a routine, just the act of thinking about it helps. When I share how I structured my day, the parent I'm working with often says, "Okay, that's a good rhythm. That feels good." Something that isn't innate to them might be innate to me. When I share it, they say, "Oh, that's such a good idea. I hadn't thought about it. I'm going to try that with my family."
Darlynn: [00:02:23] So I thought I would do an episode on how I structured our days: the mornings, how I handled lunches, what we did in the afternoons, and how I handled dinner and tidying up. This kind of real nuts-and-bolts homemaking and parenting stuff is the stuff that's really frustrating. Yes, we can work on mindset and practice connection and compassion. But how do you actually get dinner on the table every night, or get your kids to clean up?
Darlynn: [00:02:52] Not even how to get them to do it, but when do you do it? That's what this episode is about. I'm going to share a bunch of different tips, almost like a giant tip sheet. If you want to stop right now and grab a piece of paper to write things down, that's great.
Darlynn: [00:03:21] Or you can just listen, hear how I structured my time, and see if one or two things pique your interest. You don't have to do all of it, unless you want to. This is going to be a jam-packed tip episode, so take what you can and leave the rest.
Darlynn: [00:03:41] This is not a to-do list. I'm not suggesting this is the way it's supposed to be done. I'm just sharing how I did it, why I made those decisions, and how it worked for me. So let's get into it.
Darlynn: [00:04:01] I'm going to start with the mornings. My goal on school mornings was to drop off the most regulated human I could. I structured our entire morning around how to create the most peace and ease, so that when they got to school, they felt calm and grounded.
Darlynn: [00:04:28] I noticed with my kids that if I had a harried morning, I was stressed, yelling and frustrated. I call it barking at them. Then at drop-off, they would have kind of a hard day. It would take a while for them to get back to that regulated space where they could learn. So I tried to keep my mornings pretty chill and very low-maintenance.
Darlynn: [00:04:58] So how did that look? First, I really wanted to have a few minutes with each kid while they were waking up. Lincoln was easy because he was a big sleepyhead. We always aimed to leave the house at 8 a.m., and I would wake him around 7:40.
Darlynn: [00:05:18] He didn't need breakfast. He wasn't hungry in the morning, and he just needed to change his clothes, brush his teeth and put on his backpack. It was pretty simple. But I focused on going in, waking him, and giving him my eyeballs and a little bit of goo while he was still in that sleepy state.
Darlynn: [00:05:40] Sawyer was often already awake. He was a real early riser, like 5 a.m., and he did not come wake me up. That would not have gone well for him or me. He would play in his room and roll around with his stuffed animals and our dog, who was really close to him, and he'd still be in his pajamas when I came in.
Darlynn: [00:06:10] I would visit with him in his room, or in the playroom if he was already there. Then I would transition him right into getting his clothes on. The first task for both boys was to get dressed. We didn't lounge around or play in pajamas. As soon as Mom was on the scene, it was time to get dressed and brush your teeth.
Darlynn: [00:06:39] In the mornings, we didn't use devices or have TV, and that was really on purpose. I didn't want anybody to get into something and then need to stop and get back out of it. That's also why, once I was up, there was no playtime either. If my younger son was already playing, I'd gather him, take him out of the play area, get him dressed and get him to the table to eat.
Darlynn: [00:07:09] I made really easy breakfasts. Some of you might find this offensive, but we did instant oatmeal, frozen waffles and yogurt, ready-made stuff that I just needed to reheat. If I'd made muffins or another baked good, I'd add that with yogurt, or frozen waffles with peanut butter. I tried to get some protein in my boy, but mostly I just wanted some food in his belly.
Darlynn: [00:07:47] Their school had snack, then lunch, then pickup. So I wasn't that concerned if they didn't eat breakfast, because there was another meal two hours later. I just gave them some food, and if they didn't eat it, I didn't make it a thing.
Darlynn: [00:07:58] I never really did warm food that I had to cook. I didn't make pancakes or eggs unless I happened to wake up with enough time. I didn't put pressure on myself to make a beautiful smoothie, because I didn't want to clean it up. So it was: get up, get dressed, brush your teeth, eat breakfast, and then it was time to leave.
Darlynn: [00:08:28] Another tip: I always stored socks near the shoes. Our house is two stories and my kids' bedrooms are upstairs, but I kept their shoes and socks downstairs near their backpacks. Typically you have a sock drawer in the bedroom. But I found that my kids would get dressed and not put socks and shoes on because they were still around the house, and if they had to go back up to their room for socks, it was going to take forever.
Darlynn: [00:09:07] So I kept a little sock basket in the laundry room. I always bought the same socks, same color, same size, for both kids. That worked for my family because they're the same gender and close in age. If I had kids who wore different types of socks, I would just have a sock bin for each one.
Darlynn: [00:09:27] I'm not kidding when I say I kept things really simple. We had one pair of school shoes, one backpack, one lunchbox and one sweatshirt. My kids had eight pairs of shorts, eight T-shirts, eight pairs of pants and eight to ten pairs of underwear, and I did laundry once a week.
Darlynn: [00:09:47] Keeping the drawers simple meant that getting dressed was just pulling a T-shirt and shorts, or in winter, a shirt and pants. We're in Southern California, so they rarely needed more than a T-shirt and a sweatshirt. The idea was to keep the drawers very simple so decisions were easy.
Darlynn: [00:10:17] The clothes were only favorites and only things that fit them. I went through the drawers often. Whenever I realized a shirt was too tight or my kid didn't wear it, it went to Goodwill or into hand-me-downs. It didn't stay in the drawer.
Darlynn: [00:10:37] I had four drawers: underwear at the top, then T-shirts, shorts and pants. That was it. For nicer clothes that we needed to save, I had under-the-bed storage, and I still do. Whenever there was an event, we'd pull those out.
Darlynn: [00:11:07] You don't have to do that, but I'm telling you it made my life very, very simple. I don't know what it would have been like if I'd had girls who liked a lot of clothes. We'd probably have had a bin of school clothes and a bin of fancier clothes you want to look fun in. And I only had to do laundry once a week, which kept things really simple for me.
Darlynn: [00:11:27] I also made a choice not to discipline or teach my kids anything in the morning. If the boys were fighting or one didn't want to put his shoes on, I'd make a little note in my head: okay, this isn't working, I'm going to talk about this later. Then I'd move the moment forward as much as I could through limit setting.
Darlynn: [00:11:56] Like, "Hey, no problem. You can either wear your shoes or put them on in the car." Or, "I'm happy to send you without socks. You don't have to put socks on." I just avoided conflict in the morning, because there wasn't enough time to have a big old thing.
Darlynn: [00:12:13] Remember, my goal was always to deliver the most regulated human I could. I called that a gentle handoff. In the mornings, I was looking for ways to move things along without getting upset, like, "Okay, fine, don't bring that. You don't need it," or "Okay, put that in your backpack. It's not a big deal." Moving forward without creating conflict was my goal.
Darlynn: [00:12:43] School started at 8:45, which was really late. But kids could arrive early for a recess time that started at 8:15. So instead of thinking they needed to be at school at 8:45, I thought, we need to leave at 8:00. We live about 10 minutes away.
Darlynn: [00:13:12] When I was looking at the clock and counting down, my thought was that we needed to leave by 8:00, and that gave us a lot of wiggle room. Our leave time wasn't backed right up to the last minute, which allowed me to relax a little. If somebody spilled something, had to go poop, or realized they were supposed to bring some silly thing to school and couldn't find it, we had buffer time.
Darlynn: [00:13:42] I also wanted to drop them off at 8:15, even though school technically started at 8:45. I wanted them there with time to play, reunite with their friends, and regulate and move their bodies before they went into class. Every school is different, and some don't have playtime. Do what works for you, but recognize that your kids have a lot of energy and need to expend some of it.
Darlynn: [00:14:12] I see a lot of sibling fighting and power struggles in the morning. That's really a way of moving big feelings: anxiety about school, frustration about having to go, disappointment that they can't keep playing. Kids have emotion in the morning, and they need a little place to dump it. A structured morning that gets them out the door helps, and if you can walk to school and get some of those wiggles out, that's even better.
Darlynn: [00:14:51] So for my mornings, I kept it as simple as I could: very simple clothes, very simple food, no extra inputs like toys or TV, and a lot of connection. I really tried to be present. I didn't eat breakfast with them. I'd make breakfast, put it on the table, and listen to their chatter about their dreams or their friends or whatever was on their mind. That was also when I made lunches.
Darlynn: [00:15:31] Let's get into lunches. Every afternoon, the rule in our family was that you could go play after your lunchbox was on the counter. I'd say, "You're welcome to play as long as your lunchbox is on the counter." I would also say that I'd make lunches for the lunchboxes that were on the counter by 3:30, but that's a little more advanced for this episode.
Darlynn: [00:15:51] Essentially, I needed all the lunchboxes on the counter so I could empty the containers and put them in the dishwasher. That way they were clean and ready in the morning, and I needed that rhythm for my morning to work. We ran the dishwasher every night no matter how full it was, even on a small cycle, because I needed those containers clean.
Darlynn: [00:16:21] The rhythm in our family was that the boys came home from school most days. Even if we had afternoon activities, I tried to get them home in between. That's not for every family, but it really worked for us, because they'd come home and do their chores. Those chores were bringing their lunchboxes to the counter and emptying the dishwasher.
Darlynn: [00:16:49] One decision I made early on was that I wasn't going to load the dishwasher during the day. I was only going to load it in the afternoon. Bear with me, because some of you might not like this and might not do it, and that's fine. I would have a full, clean dishwasher in the morning, with clean containers. Then we'd have breakfast, I'd prep lunches, and I'd leave everything in the sink.
Darlynn: [00:17:19] I'd drop the boys off and come home. This part is a stay-at-home-mom world, by the way. A lot of moms come home, do the breakfast dishes and load the dishwasher. I didn't. I left my breakfast and lunch dishes in the sink, and I just decided that was okay.
Darlynn: [00:17:58] Then in the afternoon, while the boys were emptying the dishwasher and emptying their lunchboxes into the sink, I was prepping snack. While they ate snack, I loaded the dishwasher. That way, when I went to make dinner, the kitchen was still really tidy.
Darlynn: [00:18:08] It was really efficient for me. I know from all my years as a stay-at-home mom that if I started cleaning the kitchen while the boys were at school, I could be in there for an hour. It's so easy to putter in the kitchen and not get anything done. So I chose not to clean the kitchen while the kids were at school.
Darlynn: [00:18:37] I made lunches while they were eating breakfast, or while Lincoln was still sleeping. And I made very, very simple lunches. Sawyer was always a very picky eater, so I sent him the same food every day. Lincoln had a bit of a rotating schedule, but also a lot of repeats.
Darlynn: [00:19:08] I remember asking my friend Becky, who has four kids, "How do you make lunches for all four of them?" Shout out to Becky. She said, "They get the same thing every day. All four of them get a sandwich." I said, "Wait, what? You can just give them a sandwich every day?" And she said, "Yeah, that's fine. It's not a big deal."
Darlynn: [00:19:28] My mind was blown that you didn't have to custom-make gorgeous, bespoke meals for your children every day. I only had one kid I needed to make a real meal for. He liked meatballs, soup and peas. He also didn't eat breakfast, so he needed a hearty snack and a hearty lunch, and his lunchbox was really full. But I tried to keep it as simple as possible.
Darlynn: [00:20:09] One other thing about lunches: a lot of parents make them at night, and that's awesome. For my friend Becky, making a sandwich at night is amazing, because then she's done and can just deal with getting four kids out the door. But Lincoln liked hot food and didn't really like sandwiches. If I'd made him a sandwich every day, he literally wouldn't have eaten it.
Darlynn: [00:20:39] So I'd warm up food like soup or meatballs while I was making breakfast, and he'd eat that at lunch. I made all the lunches in the morning, and it worked for me. I'm also a morning person, so it wasn't a big deal.
Darlynn: [00:20:49] The last thing I'll say about this is probably also controversial: I didn't send water bottles. I did when they were younger, in preschool, kindergarten and first grade. But they were hardly drinking the water, they were always losing the bottles, and it was so stressful.
Darlynn: [00:21:18] I stopped sending them almost by accident, and I noticed it wasn't a big deal. They could get water from the fountain at recess, and they survived not drinking a lot of water all day. I also remember being a kid when water bottles didn't exist, and somehow I survived. So I stopped sending them unless it was extremely hot, they had a field trip, or they asked.
Darlynn: [00:21:48] I know other moms who do send water bottles, and their kid has to be in charge of it. The kid gets it out of their backpack, fills it up and puts it back. You can 100% make that your child's responsibility. Even as young as 6, you can say, "If you want a water bottle, be sure to fill it up."
Darlynn: [00:22:09] So for lunches, I kept it simple, had the containers on the counter in the afternoon, loaded them in the dishwasher, and ran the dishwasher every night.
Darlynn: [00:22:19] Now, afternoons. How did I keep my life simple in the afternoons? I hope you're enjoying this episode. Maybe you're loving it, or maybe you think it's really boring. I have no idea, but I'm sharing it because I think it will help somebody.
Darlynn: [00:22:40] Like I said about the mornings, my goal was always that gentle handoff, delivering the most emotionally regulated humans I could. I had a similar goal at pickup: I was going to give my kids my full attention at the time of reunion.
Darlynn: [00:23:09] I think about certain times of the day when our kids really need what I call our eyeballs: in the morning, at drop-off, at pickup and at bedtime. These are the hardest, most transitional points for our children. They're usually also the times when we're done or very distracted. Our needs compete: we need our kids to be quiet and leave us alone, and they need our full attention and presence.
Darlynn: [00:23:39] If you focus on that gentle handoff and that good, gooey morning time, you're going to have a better afternoon. So I tried to be really present for our reunion. If I was in a conversation with the other moms at pickup when my kid came out, I would stop and say, "Excuse me, let me say hi to my kid."
Darlynn: [00:24:08] I'd turn to my kid, look them in the eyeballs and say, "Hi, I missed you." We would reunite and I'd give them my attention. I really believe that set the tone for the afternoon, that I was on duty. It was like my workday had begun.
Darlynn: [00:24:28] I sometimes thought about my time as a stay-at-home mom as a split shift. I was on from 6 to 8:30 in the morning and again from 2:30 to 8:30 at night. Of course, I was also working for my family while they were at school, but it was kid-free time, so I had a lot of discretion over how I used it. When I was with my kids, I really tried to be focused and present, especially at those times of reunion and separation.
Darlynn: [00:25:07] Most days, like I said, we came home after school and did snacks and chores. The snacks I served were a fruit and a carb, like fruit and a muffin, or fruit and chips or crackers. Something that gave them a little sugar and a little carbohydrate to get them to dinner.
Darlynn: [00:25:17] Snack was around 3:15 or 3:30, and dinner wasn't until 5:30 or 6:00, so it was only a couple of hours. If they were going to sports, I might serve a granola bar like a Z Bar. But I tried to keep Z Bars for the car, not for sitting at the table.
Darlynn: [00:25:49] Now, about activities. We really only did one sport at a time, which is kind of how the schedule is set up anyway: soccer, then basketball, then baseball. If you do year-round activities like martial arts, recognize that's going to be a pretty big burden on you. Really think about whether you can handle that many transitions if you're also keeping up religious school or enrichment along with a sport.
Darlynn: [00:26:28] I always tried to get my kids on sports teams with my friends' kids, because I wanted as much carpool help as I could get. I had a very good friend named Kristen whose kids were a similar age and consistently on the same teams. We lived close by and could help each other out, and that helped us a lot.
Darlynn: [00:26:48] I'd sign up for enrichment if it worked for my schedule and our budget. I just wasn't precious about it. I didn't feel pressure to make sure my kids had access to every art class, music lesson and tutor. To be perfectly honest, I didn't want that busy of a life. And they're great kids. They're very emotionally healthy. That was my goal, and that's what I did.
Darlynn: [00:27:21] Our school got out early on Wednesdays, so we went to the park, and a lot of moms went to the park on Wednesdays. That satisfied a lot of the need for playdates, especially with friends who lived further away. I was okay with playdates as long as they worked for my schedule and my other kid. If not, I'd just say no. I was fine whether my kids played with other kids or not, and they liked being at home playing with their toys.
Darlynn: [00:28:01] Most of our afternoons were structured around play and sports. Off-sport days were open for playdates or just playing at home. I really believed in a slower pace for kids and giving them lots of time to play with their toys. My kids played with toys until they were about 11.
Darlynn: [00:28:21] That meant time at home without devices. The other decision we made was no video games or TV on weekdays. Primarily, it was very hard to get them off of it and onto something else, and there just wasn't enough time. You get home at 3:15, dinner is at 6:15, and then it's bed. It felt too rushed, and I wanted them to have more time without tech.
Darlynn: [00:28:52] So we did kind of a slow-tech thing. Was I perfect? Of course not. There were definitely nights I'd say, "Let's watch a movie tonight," or "You guys can watch a show." They watched lots of shows, but it wasn't assumed they'd get it. So when they did, it was very exciting, and I could actually get a real break.
Darlynn: [00:29:12] The other thing I didn't do in the afternoons was run errands. I didn't really take my kids grocery shopping or to Costco very often. They did some Target runs with me, but not many. Even with their clothing, I'd go buy it and they'd just have new clothes. I didn't take them on errands, mostly because it wasn't that much fun for me, and I'd rather keep my life simple.
Darlynn: [00:29:51] Say one had soccer practice from 4 to 5 and I had the other one with me. Sometimes we'd run a little errand during that time, but I hardly ever took both of them. If they both happened to be dropped off at sports at the same time, I'd use that time for myself: run an errand, read my book or call a friend. But most of the time, I really thought of the afternoon as work hours, and I didn't expect to get much done.
Darlynn: [00:30:31] This episode's running long, so I guess I just have a lot to say about it. All right, so what about dinner? How did I handle that? I'd do some very generic meal planning on Sunday or Monday, so I roughly knew what I was going to make for the week.
Darlynn: [00:30:50] For years, I had the same five to eight go-to meals that I served over and over again. They were meals I could make without a recipe or a bunch of ingredients: tacos, burgers, pasta, teriyaki stir fry, fajitas, roast chicken with roasted potatoes, and enchilada casserole. Simple, simple stuff. Most of it came from the freezer or the pantry, which made my life very simple and made dinner less of a drag.
Darlynn: [00:31:30] I know a lot of you have go-to meals. My friend Deb's go-to is wraps with hummus and veggies, and that's a meal for her kids. My kids wouldn't have eaten that, so I didn't serve it. But whatever your go-tos are, don't be afraid to serve them over and over again. You don't need to create a lot of variety in food unless you like it, and realize that it's going to take a lot of time.
Darlynn: [00:32:00] In the morning while I was doing breakfast, I trained myself to think, "What's for dinner tonight?" so I could thaw the meat. If it was turkey tacos or burgers or a chicken stir fry, I'd think, "Okay, let me thaw the meat." Some of you don't freeze your meat, and that's really handy. But I always bought meat in bulk and froze it, so I had to think about it in the morning.
Darlynn: [00:32:38] So I was thinking about breakfast, lunch and dinner all in the morning while I was in the kitchen. Sometimes, if I had the bandwidth, I'd cook up a couple pounds of ground meat or a bunch of chicken in the Instant Pot, so I had cooked meat ready to go. That was always really handy.
Darlynn: [00:33:07] Sometimes I didn't have dinner, and I'd serve what I called "calories." The kids would ask, "What's for dinner?" and I'd say, "Calories." I meant just enough food to feel full: popcorn, cereal, sandwiches, fruit. I really wasn't that concerned about the quality or the nutrients. That was their dinner.
Darlynn: [00:33:37] Most nights, right after dinner, we went to bath and bed. Dinner marked the end of the afternoon and the end of playing. As I transitioned my kids to dinner, they'd clean up their toys and put things away, and then it was dinner, bath and bed.
Darlynn: [00:33:57] There were times when dinner was a little early and they had a lot of energy, and I knew I wasn't going to get these two yahoos into the bath, or if I did, it would be a flood. I could sense that energy and think, "Okay, this is a day we need to get our sillies out." So after dinner, especially on summer or spring evenings, we'd go for a scooter ride or walk to a park about 15 minutes from our house, go on the swings for a minute, and walk back.
Darlynn: [00:34:26] We also had a trampoline outside. Sometimes after dinner they'd play with their bodies. We wouldn't go back in and start a Lego session or play circus or zoo. It was just, go move your body. I called it big body movement, and then we'd go to bath and bed.
Darlynn: [00:34:56] Every once in a while, if dinner had been early or I could sense they were hungry, I'd serve a before-bed snack. That happened especially when they were younger and dinner was even earlier, because by 5 o'clock when they were in preschool, I'd be so restless. I'd serve dinner, and then at 7:30 they'd be starving again. So sometimes I did a very small before-bed snack, and then I'd put them to bed.
Darlynn: [00:35:26] When I went from dinner to bath, or from dinner to taking them outside to run around, there wasn't always a lot of time to clean up dinner. I knew it was best for me to clean up the kitchen before they went to bed. But I'd think, "I can't do it right now. They're so wild. I need to go take care of them."
Darlynn: [00:35:55] I'd take care of them, get them down to bed, come back to the kitchen, and it would still be kind of a mess. I just started to let myself off the hook. I'd say, "You know what? I'm going to do that in the morning." I'd still run the dishwasher, but I wouldn't always do the pans from dinner, because to be honest, I'd get too tired.
Darlynn: [00:36:25] In my circumstance, my husband was always at work. He had a long commute and worked 50-hour weeks, and he was very rarely home on weeknights. He came in right at the end of the night, at bedtime. Sometimes he would do the dishes, and other times I'd say, "Don't worry about it. I'll just do them tomorrow."
Darlynn: [00:36:46] I think we have a lot of guilt and pressure to have our houses perfect and clean, with the sink clean and the dishes done all day. You can drop some of that. It's really okay if you wake up and do a couple of pans. At least it was for me, because I'm not a night person.
Darlynn: [00:37:06] The whole point of sharing this with you is that I want you to see that I built a rhythm that worked for me and matched my energy and my family's dynamic. I just decided that was okay, that whatever I did was fine. And you can decide that too.
Darlynn: [00:37:35] You can decide to have simple food, or not do sports at all, or do playdates every night and get takeout every day. Whatever you do is up to you, but you need to figure out what works for you. If something is stressing you out, take time to figure out what isn't working and find a better solution.
Darlynn: [00:38:05] In that process, you're going to find how to let yourself off the hook and give yourself permission. Don't people-please, and don't social-please. Just do what works for you and your kids, because what your kids ultimately need is for you to be calm.
Darlynn: [00:38:15] That's why this podcast is called Become A Calm Mama. I know that the more calm, regulated and peaceful you feel, the easier it will be to parent your kids. And the easier it will be for them to cooperate, be less stressed, learn more and have better friendships. All the things you want happen when you feel good.
Darlynn: [00:38:44] So you have permission to do your life the way you want. I've modeled how I did it, including the areas where I quote-unquote cut corners, and I'm on the other side of it saying, yeah, it was okay. It worked out. Feeling free and feeling empowered is what I want for you.
Darlynn: [00:39:04] If you want any help with this, you can book a session with me and we'll talk it through. I'd be happy to. There'll be a link in the show notes, or you can go to calmmamacoaching.com and connect with me that way.
Darlynn: [00:39:14] As you head back to school, I wish you the most peace. And don't forget about the Back to School Shit Show episode. We'll post a link to it in the show notes. That was an episode I did last year about the first week of school and how insane it can be.
Darlynn: [00:39:35] Just letting you know, the back-to-school shit show is real. Give yourself lots of permission, don't tackle more than you can, and give yourself permission to take excellent care of yourself. I'll talk to you next week. Have a great week.
