Get dressed!

(This was one of our first afternoons out,
and I managed to not wear sweats)

(This was originally published in Feb. of 2012 in The Maine Edge and is reposted with permission)

By Katy England
edge staff mom

When you add kids to your routine, you basically add more time than you physically have to your schedule. Especially if you have more than one at the same time. This means you tend to let things go. Cut corners, as it were. You do their laundry instead of your laundry. Wash their dishes (bottles) instead of your dishes. And suddenly you realize it's 5 p.m. and you're still in your jammies – and is that the guy who's coming to fix the heater? Crap.

I've learned that you need to make excuses to get dressed. It's one of the best things you can do to make you feel like a real person again. And the more you feel like one, the more you can act like one.
Here are some ways to ensure you get dressed.

Schedule appointments where you must leave the house. Be it doctors visits, work-related meetings, home nurse meetings - whatever. Get dressed.

Invite your friends over. Preferably friends who will rib you gently about looking like an unmade bed. Schedule a girls' night, make it a point to wear that cute thing you bought, or the heels you like, or as a chance to finally get that hair cut you've been putting off for a month.

We know it's hard to focus on you when there are much more important things to be thinking about. But I think there is truth in the statement that looking better is feeling better. When I look put together, I feel more competent, I act more competent and therefore I am more competent. And getting into that mental space isn't just good for you, it's good for your whole family.

Yes, this might be spoiled by an ill-timed spit up or diaper malfunction. But who cares? You have more than one pair of pants and more than one halfway decent shirt. Most of these stains will come out. And it's OK if you have to bring a couple things to the dry cleaner.

Showers, sleep and other mommy scheduling conflicts

(From Wikimedia Commons)

(This  originally was printed in The Maine Edge in Feb. 2012, and is reposted with permission).

By Katy England

edge staff mom

I've always been a person who had two separate minds when it come to scheduling. One mind was my work brain, which kept track of business meetings, interviews for stories and any other business related meetup that might appear. Then there was my home, or social, mind. This was for lunches with pals, hitting the movies and meeting up for gaming, dinner and drinks at a friend's house.

Add three kids to this mix and suddenly there isn't enough brain power to go around, and more scheduling conflicts than I ever thought possible arise. Who knew that there would be a scheduling conflict between sleeping and showering? You have time for one or the other, not both. You have to cancel one of them.

This is compounded by the epic amount of doctor appointments needed to bring your kids up to date on things like immunizations, regular exams and what not. Add in family and friends who want to visit and help and suddenly you have another full docket.

Then there is that separate brains problem, when you have set up a doctor's appointment for your kids three months in advance, but you don't mesh that schedule with your work schedule – because up until a few months ago you never had this whole other schedule to keep track of. This entails calling people to explain that you've gone full-blown stupid and double booked.

Thankfully, losing your mind because of new children is something most people (or at least most people with children) are entirely sympathetic towards. Even if their kids have grown up, they remember that first year.

Here are some scheduling conflicts for some of the rooms in your own house. Pick two out of three.

Kitchen: You can cook dinner, wash bottles or stock or empty the dishwasher.

Living Room: Pick up toys, sweep/vacuum the floor or pay bills.

Bathroom/Laundry Room: Wash your clothes, wash your kids clothes/diapers or take a shower.

Bedroom: Feed kids, get dressed in real clothes (sweatpants don't count) or sleep.

And that's just at your own house. If you need to bathe a child, meet with friends or fix an appliance, you can only pick one out of three.