A Better Bag of Groceries

My New School Year Resolutions

Wednesday, September 8, 2010 at 09:23 AM

My Jewish friends will celebrate the New Year, Rosh Hashanah, tonight and tomorrow.  It’s yet another reason why I think that I may have been Jewish in a previous life – celebrating the New Year in early September makes so much sense to me.  The end of summer and the beginning of the school year is the new year to me and to my family and it is the right time for us to make some New Year’s Resolutions.

While most parents I’ve talked to lately are excited to send our kids back to school, we are all dreading one thing:  the Morning Rush.  Getting four people out the door and to the places they need to go to on time is a superhuman feat that needs to be repeated on a daily basis.  And it is Stressful with a Capital S.  So, as we’ve enjoyed these beautiful, blissful last few days of summer, I’ve spent a little time making a mental short list of things that we can do as a family to make our morning routine run just a little more smoothly this year. 

1. Use a Kids’ Checklist to keep on track.  We instituted the kids’ checklist for both their morning and evening routines last year – about halfway through the school year.  They worked pretty well.  We made them in excel and they hung on their closet doors in their bedrooms and the kids checked the tasks off as they completed them (brush teeth, make bed, etc).  The problem with those checklists however, was that I could not read them from afar.  So, if I was running from the bathroom to my dressing room trying to get myself ready for work, I couldn’t really see where the kids were in their morning routine.  We had to constantly keep on top of them.  So, this year, we made big checklists using big flip-chart paper and we had the kids help plan out their routines so they would feel some ownership for what they needed to do.  I’ll let you know how it goes!
2. Make all the lunches the night before – including Mom’s and Dad’s lunch.  We’ve always made the kids’ lunches the night before – beginning way back from when we were sending bottles and finger foods to daycare.  However, for some reason, we stop there.  I think we’re just too tired to then make our own lunches too.  Well, that means that we spend ten (plus) minutes making lunch for ourselves in the morning.  That’s ten minutes that we don’t have.  So this year, we resolve (I have to get my husband to read this post!) to make our own lunches the night before too.  It will help to have a little snack-bagging party on Sunday, where we pre-slice and bag some fruits and veggies.
3. Speaking of the night before, we will follow the motto, if it can be done the night before, we will do it the night before.  We will lay out clothes, we will pack up all laptops and electronic equipment, we will write the check for the milkman.  Heck, we will make an Evening Checklist of the things we can do the night before.  Woo hoo!  I’m getting very excited about these resolutions!  Too bad I can’t shower, put in my contacts and dry my hair the night before.
4. My son will do his homework before dinner.  Welcome to second grade.  Last year, our routine was homework after dinner.  It wasn’t particularly productive.  By that time, everybody was tired and cranky.  There were some nights when one of us was still working with my son well past 8 pm because there was still homework to be done.  Enter our new babysitter who begins next week and our new after-school program that has a Homework Club.  Our new babysitter asked me if I would like for her to work on homework with my son because that’s what she usually does with the children that she watches.  Sounds great to me!  And on the days that my son is at his after-school program, he will work on homework at the homework club.  We have already broken the news to my son, that while there will still be time for playing after school, homework will be done after school, not after dinner.  We need to leave time for all the things we need to do on our Evening Checklist in Resolution #3.
5. Back to the morning routine, we will use the clock countdown method for breakfast.  My kids get the sillies at breakfast time.  They stall.  They like to talk about movies and TV.  Truly, it is maddening at times.  So, this summer, when our morning routine included slathering their little bodies with sunblock, head-to-toe, we instituted the clock countdown method at breakfast time.  That meant that we would say, “you have until the big hand is on the 3 to finish your cereal and blueberries.”  It works pretty well.  It also helps to make sure that no stuffed animals or toys made it to the table.  Which leads me to Resolution Number 6.
6. Stuffed Animals will remain on the second level of our house.  At all times.  OK, I’ll let them come down to Floor Number 1 for Pizza Movie night on Fridays, but that’s it.  You see, stuffed animals are this huge distraction in our morning routine.  Now, I do have a neighbor who makes her kids put on their school clothes the minute they get out of bed.  I’m OK with my kids coming down in their pajamas for 10 minutes of TV to wake up (hey, we all need our “coffee”) before breakfast.  But Elmo, Duck and Snoopy stay upstairs.  End of story.
7. We will use Out the Door Checklists (one per person) to make sure that we are not making emergency drives back from the office with lunches, gym shoes, snacks, etc.  I love that my kids are getting big enough to carry their own stuff.  But it certainly does increase the error percentage rate, doesn’t it.  They did great all summer – my son only forgot his lunch on the very last day of Summer Day Camp – and then my husband had to turn around, come back and get it.  And so, he missed his train to Boston.  So, while my house will be a sea of checklists, hanging everywhere, we will place one last checklist on our front door, so that everyone can check to see that they’ve got their stuff.

I think that seven New School Year’s Resolutions is enough to keep track of.  I have to say that my husband and I always start out strong, and soon slip a few weeks into the new routine.  So, I’ll let you know how we do this year.  Wish us luck!  And Happy New Year!

First Day of Second Grade

My son was up at the crack of dawn for his big first day of school.  He literally waited at our front door for 45 minutes with his backpack on.  (You see – at first it’s easy.  Wait until a few weeks when he’s tired and cranky).

All was good until the skies opened up and the lightning bolts started coming down right at bus stop time!  Oh well, we made it.  Can’t wait to hear how the first day of second grade went!

Question of the Day

Do you have any New School Year Resolutions?

Yesterday’s Winner

Congratulations to Commenter #24, Hillary!  You’ve won my Back to School, PB&J Giveaway!  Please send me an email at abetterbagofgroceries@gmail.com with your mailing address so that I can send your prize to you.  Thank you to everyone who entered.

Posted by: Melissa 5 comments

Posted in: back-to-school

Tags: back-to-school, New School Year Resolutions

A Better Back-To-School

Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 08:31 AM

First of all, I must say that I am boycotting Back-To-School this year. With all the rain and cold weather we had in June, this summer seems shorter than ever. I’ve enjoyed some time with a little less structure, a few less weekly activities, and sleeping in on Sundays. Since the kids will wear summer clothes until the weather turns cooler, I don’t see the need to go out and buy a boatload of fall clothes until later in September. I’ll hit the sale racks then. And as the mother of a preschooler and a child entering first grade, I really don’t need to go out and buy much in the way of school supplies. I think that this country’s Back to School season is now longer than our Christmas season, with the first Back-to-School flyers arriving before the 4th of July. Can we please have a little summer?

While some parents can’t wait for school to begin again (I think of that office supply store commercial from a few years back that used The Most Wonderful Time of the Year for background music), I am dreading the return of bus schedules, gymnastics, swim lessons, ballet, and sport-du-jour for my son. Probably the thing I dread the most is Lunch Box and Snack Preparation. Because you see, in our house, we need an excel spreadsheet to keep this task organized.

My two children attend a total of 3 schools all with different rules around heat-ups, cold packs and peanuts (or any nuts, really). My son needs 1 lunch (peanuts OK), a morning snack (no cold pack because there is no room in the back pack), and an afternoon snack (no cold pack, must be something that won’t be all wilted by 2 pm). My daughter attends a Nut-Free pre-school 3 days a week, for which she needs a snack with no allergens, and daycare 2 days a week, for which she needs a lunch that can be reheated. Now you see why we need the spreadsheet – and containers that we mark with the child’s name and whether it is lunch or snack. Good thing I don’t have 8 kids. I can barely handle 2. And my heart goes out to children with food allergies and their parents. We have friends and relatives who deal with food allergies, and it is very difficult for them.

When my son attended aforementioned Nut-Free Preschool (that would be a funny name for a school actually), he was there all day, so lunch had to be nut-free and the teachers do not have time to heat up your kids’ food in the microwave. And that is why my kids eat hummus and cheese sandwiches. You see, my son was not a big fan of ham-and-cheese or turkey-and-cheese. And peanut-butter-and-jelly (his favorite) was not an option. So, I started making hummus and cheese. It was a great way to give him some protein in the middle of the day. Hummus scores in the 40s and there are some great whole grain breads that score very well:

Nature’s Own 100% Whole Wheat Bread – 81

Arnold Natural Flax and Fiber Bread – 48

Pepperidge Farm Natural Whole Grain 9 Grain Bread – 40

And that is about all I’d like to say about Back to School, because I am going to enjoy these last days of summer, this luxuriously late Labor Day this year, and just a couple more Sundays to sleep in. Oh, and I’ll get right on making this year’s lunch/snack spreadsheet.

For more tips from people who want to talk about Back-To-School, like NuVal’s Communications Director, please check out our Back-To-School Press Release. It really does have some great ideas – and cool scores. I’m just not ready to think about them.

Posted by: Melissa 2 comments

Posted in: back-to-school

Tags: back-to-school