The evening routine

So our evenings now have a definite "to do list" during the week. The kids are in bed early - 6:30pm and after yesterday, they also get dinner early - 4:30pm. My main goal before going to bed is to make sure that the kids' lunch boxes are packed with the appropriate snack or lunch for the next day. There is a quality check in this process. It is Bean's first task in the morning to go to the fridge, pull out his lunchbox and assess what has been packed for the day. Schmoo has quickly caught on to this task as well and she makes it known whether or not the packed items are suitable. For example this morning, I told her that I would be adding a frozen tube to her lunch box, to which she responded "you need to put ice in my lunchbox, otherwise it tastes TERRIBLE." She also counts all the items in hers and Bean's lunch boxes to make sure they have the same number of items. Not only is she the rule announcer, she is the fairness police!

Needless to say, the packing process in the evenings is difficult. Most people already know that I am not a fan of the never ending task of deciding what to feed my children. Packing lunch boxes is even more difficult because there are limits to what you can pack, mostly around size and whether or not there are nuts involved. I'm constantly checking packaging to make sure the said snack does not contain traces of nuts. Just yesterday I discovered that my bag of pretzels are packed in a facility that uses peanut butter. So I spend lots of time stood in front of the pantry or fridge, trying to compile a healthy, nut-free snack that my children won't think is TERRIBLE.

Today was a very long day. We could hear Bean rustling in his room when our alarm went off at 6am. He's so independent now. He rummages around in his room for a bit and then makes his way to the bathroom for his morning pee. It's usually 15 minutes or so before he makes his way into our room and he's usually fully dressed! Schmoo was a bit slower this morning. She was up in the night at 1am, when she crawled right up in our bed and snuggled in between us. I promptly returned her to her bed, having been woken from a very deep sleep. We were all out of the house by 7:20am. My day screamed by. I worked straight through until 12:30pm and then headed out for my daily wander down the road to the bank to do the deposit. I picked up a sandwich on my way back and put in another couple of hours before heading up the hill to pick up Schmoo at 3pm.

Both kids were happy when I picked them up, but it didn't take long for them to let their guards down and for their tiredness to come out. By the time we got home they both had something to cry and complain about. I spent about 1/2 hour trying to appease Schmoo with building a fort that just couldn't be built the way she wanted it to be. I moved quickly to making dinner - again standing in the kitchen trying to decide what to make - in time for 4:30pm. They both seemed happier after dinner and after a bit of a play and a big hair-washing bath, they settled in to watch Arthur before bedtime. Papa was home in time to have a story and a snuggle at bedtime. The kids always have lots to tell at bedtime, so starting early is a good idea so that they don't feel rushed in telling their stories from the day. They were both asleep quickly.

Our evening is quiet. We had a nice dinner together and now Papa is watching Jamie Oliver and I'm working on the computer. I'm anticipating an early night again as my brain is very, very full and there's lots to do tomorrow, with only a short day to do it in. Papa is also off on a business trip tomorrow for two nights, so I'm thinking pizza for dinner one night?!!