Ah. Rhythm. Routine. Schedule.

I crave it. I’m not good at keeping it – left on my own I’m far too airy fairy to follow a schedule. I’ve been trying ever since Alex was a wee tot to find a daily routine.

For the last year my routine has been make a mess, eat some fast food, have a smoke, repeat. Occasionally with a blast of cleaning or home repair.

But Rhythm. Ahh Rhythm.

It’s only been a week and I can feel the peace it’s bringing to me. I feel more centered, more capable, more likely to succeed.

I woke before my alarm at 645am. Which, lucky for me, because my alarm didn’t actually make any noise. (Man I need a new phone. And a paycheck. Bygones.) I put on clothes and HEELS (bad move – 4 bandaids on my feet later  . . .)

Last week, I put together the paper schedule for my students. Which is always a tricky thing – pulling students out of class – there are the ‘thou shalt nots’ – like from specials (aka phy ed, music art, recess, lunch) – there are the ‘thou mustn’ts’ (Reading time – aka CAT time. uh okay.) – then there’s the turf. ah the unwritten rules of turf. “oh you can’t take him during Phonics” Uh, wanna bet? Imma show you my federally mandated piece of paperwork signed by the district and parents and damn near God himself that says otherwise . . . .

Oh, but I digress. My bad.

I wrote out draft three of my schedule last week and walked in today on this sunny Monday to follow it and watched it blow the fuck right up 🙂 Did I care? Nope. Really really didn’t. Because I was running around seeing kids, doing my job and documenting my heart out. I honestly have very little remembrance of what I did today because I was THAT busy. Which is fine – it’s all written in my notebook for me to compile the data on later.

I know I’m doing something right – a teacher stopped me in the hall and said, “You are SUCH a breath of fresh air – I want you to know I really appreciate it.”

At the end of the day, I revamped the schedule. Taking the red pen to it and going to talk to teachers. Tomorrow I will try it again, and see how intact I can keep it.

And my feet. Oh fricking aching feet. Running around in heels all day – sweet holy ouch.

On the home front, yesterday, Alex and I were superhero house cleaners. Or at least I was. He decorated my cabinets.

I really just quit on yesterday at that point. Fortunately today being a new day lets me know that I can set the timer and work on each other rooms in the house and find a bit of a rhythm, so MommyNAlex can have the home we want. (I would like to add that Alex just read this entire paragraph as I was typing it. It’s been said, “We all pray for smart kids, I don’t know that we want them as smart as yours.” Holy heck was he right.)