Being on the ball

One of my least favorite mommy chores is making lunches. I have struggled with this going back to my teenage years. I force myself to pack them up. I don't know why I have this dread about it, maybe its because I usually pack stuff that doesn't really jazz me. I try to do the healthy thing when I am really craving a juicy cheeseburger and onion rings. So...I torture myself with lunches I really don't like. That expands to the little man, which isn't really fair to him. He is pretty simple-jelly sandwiches (grape only), cheese sandwiches or pop tarts. A fruit, some cookies and juice. Not too much thought involved there, but I still seem to have a mental block. Tuesday's lunch choice for me involves leftover tater skins topped with spinach and veggies, so that should be very yummy.
Breakfast...that's a different story. All of a sudden the little man doesn't want breakfast any more. He tells me he's not hungry and I don't want to force feed him, but he needs to eat it. A lot of mornings he is eating cereal on the go, in the car because we don't have time for breakfast. My goal is that he can eat breakfast at home before we go out the door. I don't usually eat breakfast at home either. Its not good for me, because I will binge during the day since I didn't eat something good for me. Lately, thanks to my sister in law, I've been eating shredded wheat cereal and it fills me up pretty well. I don't have this burning need to snack throughout the morning and I feel pretty energetic.
My other big issue are beverages of choice. I prefer soda-regular coke, thank you very much-over anything else. Although, crystal lite red mandarin tea or peach mango green tea are pretty good too. I just don't get into water. And then there is my obsession with coffee. I love coffee, if I could hook up an IV to the coffee pot, I would. It truly is my beverage of choice, but as I get older, I've realized that I can't drink it all hours like I used to-if I drink too much of it later in the day I can't sleep. I guess this means I am getting old...
But the whole thing with breakfast and lunch means thinking things out in advance. I have to plan it out the night before because the mornings are such a blur for me. If I don't pack lunches at night, then someone won't have one to (like mommy, and then its off to go swipey swipey and its not a healthy choice)eat and then all is cranky and miserable in our world.
I am working on planning things in advance. Like packing lunches and setting up the coffe pot at night. Setting the washer up to run at night, so I can keep up with the laundry and not spending all day on the weekend doing it. Prepping dinner-tomorrow is chicken pot pie. Its all ready to go-just have to pop it in the oven when I get home tomorrow. Clothes are laid out for tomorrow (including accessories-bonus!) And I've even got the start of a blog post so I am not struggling for things to say when I am at the most brain dead....
I do need my quiet time in the morning. I wake up, do my yoga daily dozen, chug some coffee (all while the computer is booting up) and then settle into Mike & Mike in the morning while I write. Its a pretty good system, and it seems to work well for me. I need that 20 minutes or so to get myself going in the morning before I can function or think straight. Then in a perfect world I go downstairs, swap out the laundry and get on the treadmill. Come upstairs, chug more coffee and go take my shower. I am convinced that there is an issue with the space time continuum when i am in the shower, because I think I'm in there for 5 minutes, and I come out check the clock and 25 minutes have gone by. Then I struggle to make up for that lost time and try to get done all I need to do in the morning to get two people out the door and a puppy dog to go potty.
I would love to consistently feather dust and swiffer my house every morning before I leave, but that usually doesn't happen. I am lucky if I get a matching pair of shoes on before we go. Its that bathroom time warp that gets me every time. Its like I lose 15-20 minutes that are so precious to me in the morning especially.
I have a few things that I feel I need to get done in the mornings before I leave in order to have a good, happy life. One is to take care of me-work out, make myself look good and fill my body with healthy food. The second thing is to take care of my house-laundry, swifter, dust, prep dinner, swish & swipe bathrooms, take care of hot spots before we leave. The third leg of the tripod is family. I don't like being angry in the morning, and its not good for the little man either. We aren't starting our days happy and at peace. Instead, there is tension and yelling and being miserable. I don't want the little man to look back on his childhood and think that mommy was a psycho. I want him to look back and have fond memories. Me being crazy in the morning isn't going to make that case for happiness.
I do have a lot of things on my plate all the time. I call it multi-tasking, others call it insanity. I have shoe boxes to wrap for the party tomorrow. PTO meeting tonight. Little Man needs a bath tonight too. Chicken pot pie for dinner. Final prep for the party & IEP meeting tomorrow. Prep for dinner tomorrow (I'm thinking either waffles or pancakes-keep it easy!) Tidy up the house too. The rest of the week looks pretty good after we get through tomorrow. I'm trying not to stress out about things. I'm just trying to BE.
Time to hit the treadmill and get the blood flowing.