I love morning and evening routines! I love the idea of starting the day and ending it in a special way.

I’d love to have an elaborate morning routine where I move my body, meditate, and journal, but it simply isn’t realistic right now. I usually sleep until William (my son) wakes up, and I value my sleep too much to wake up earlier than that.

Waking up + Family cuddle time!

Usually, I wake up when I hear William’s happy noises. He wakes up cheerful most of the time and makes sounds that are a bit like birds chirping. He only remains cheerful for a few minutes, however, so it’s not like I have forever. Therefore, once he’s awake, I get up, go to the bathroom, and drink a big glass with electrolytes (this helps me rehydrate; I feel light-headed in the morning, so the electrolytes help me feel better).

Then, I walk into the bedroom where William is usually sitting up in bed. I open the curtains, turn off the white noise machine, and say, “Good morning, little lovie!” or something of that sort. Then I take him out of his sleeping bag and cuddle in bed. Jacob joins us for this, so it’s family cuddle time! It is such a wonderful way to start the day.

William doesn’t want to be cuddled for very long though. He wants to get out of bed and play, so soon we’re all up. I change his diaper, put on lotion, and get him dressed for the day. After that, I make the bed; this is an important habit for me as it makes it clear that the day has started and I’m ready for it to begin. Then, I comb my hair, wash my face with cold water (awesome for waking me up!), put on face cream and stuff, and get dressed.

Breakfast time + Let’s make a plan for the day

While I get William and myself ready, Jacob warms up our breakfast. We cook our breakfast in batches, so it’s already prepared and chilling (literally, haha) in the fridge. Jacob puts it on plates, warms it up, and makes coffee (for himself) and tea (for me).

William is quite impatient with breakfast, so he’s usually trying to climb up into his chair even before his breakfast is ready. We get him seated, and then we all sit down for breakfast. We don’t always have breakfast all together at the same time, but we try to do so whenever possible (which is probably 4 or 5 times a week).

While we have breakfast, Jacob and I go over our plans for the day. We tell the other what we plan to do today and in what order. On the one hand, it’s helpful to go over this for our own sake in order to get clarity on what our aims are for the day. On the other hand, it can also help to discuss this with our partner because we need to coordinate our plans if we’re spending the day together or if one person is dependent on the other.

After that, we clean up the kitchen. Jacob puts away the dirty dishes, and I clean the table and William’s chair (which can be quite the task!). Next, we take our supplements and our fish oil and also give William fish oil (he loves it! I’m not even kidding, he eats it with gusto 😀 ).

Getting ready…

Now comes the not-so-fun part. It’s a sequence of various small tasks to get ourselves ready for whatever the day has in store. If we’re going out, I prepare William’s backpack with everything that needs to be packed. If he’s going to daycare, I also pack his food, snacks, shoes, rain pants, blankie… you get the idea. If I’m going to work (physically in the office!), I pack my food, laptop, computer glasses (very important!!!), and whatever else is necessary.

Recently, I’ve been making Jacob a massive bottle of electrolyte water. It’s a 2-liter bottle full of water, and I add sodium chloride, potassium chloride, magnesium malate, sweetener, raspberry aroma, and lemon juice. He drinks it throughout the day and says it makes him feel amazing. I also make myself two bottles (~1.6 liters) of water with electrolytes, which lasts me about 6-8 hours.

Afterwards, I brush my teeth and do make up (if I feel like it) and get dressed. Then, I change William’s diaper, put on his jacket and shoes (at this point, he goes crazy with excitement because he loves having his shoes put on), and go out the door. This may be to go to daycare, to run some errands, or just to go for a walk.

Why does getting ready take so long?!

The funny thing is, I always underestimate how long this last part takes. How long can it take to get a couple of things ready and a couple of people out the door? Usually, twice as long as I expect.

For instance, the other day I was taking William to daycare. At 8:02, I had just finished cleaning the kitchen and I thought, “Oh, we may be early for daycare today.” Hahaha. We usually bring him to daycare around 8:45 or 9:00, but that day we arrived at 9:10. I can’t even tell you how we managed to take that long.

Well, actually, I can. I was about to put on make up, and I noticed that William had gotten a hold of my mascara. No problem, I thought; he doesn’t know how to open it. Half a minute later, I noticed his hands were covered in black. Arrrghhhh… Take wet wipe, clean hands, clean mouth, change clothes…

And that’s how it all took longer than expected.

Not a serene morning routine but a ‘fun’ one?

My fantasy morning routine is an hour (or two?) of tai chi barefoot on the grass, meditation in the sunlight, and journaling with a cup of tea. Clearly, my current routine is not even close to that, but hey, at least I have a family cuddle. That’s my current life stage, and getting everybody out the door ready and on time is a victory worth celebrating. I promise myself that one day when I’m 50 or 60, I can have my dream morning routine. Until then, may the force be with me (in the morning especially)!

Do you have a morning routine you love, or would you like to have one? What is it? I’d love to know!