My Predictions for Summer Routine 2019

Maybe some SAHMs' lives revolve around a clock. To a degree, ever since my kids started elementary school, mine does as well. But it's the school bell. The kids at home? Well, they're on a routine. Not a schedule.

ENFPs really hate routines and schedules and agendas and boring same mundaneness. It is really just the worst. I really want something exciting, interesting, new, different, fun, exotic, radically out of the ordinary.

My exterior world is not any of those things, and to some extent I really believe that's how things *should* be in order to be a stable, functioning adult. It's really all up to my interior world to make up for the drudgery, then. And there are pockets of also enjoying the physical world, too. Grumble grumble I should try to do that more.

But this post isn't about those things, it's about the shift of my daily routine.

Fall and Winter have passed. This is how I predict my routines will (or should) shift:

	Fall/Winter/Spring Routines		Summer Routines
6:30-9ish	wake up, nurse the baby, eat breakfast, get showered/dressed/ready for the day,	6:30-7:30	wake up, go for a run while it is still cool outside. Eat breakfast
8-11ish	Danny leaves for work around 8-9 arrange childcare - here, or at my mom's house, or go somewhere like the gym, a friend's house, etc. texting if still nursing or doing some terribly mundane task like folding laundry Joey naps read my scriptures work on my book	8ish	nurse the baby. He has become an efficient nurser and likes table food. Feed other kids, get them breakfast
		by 8:30ish	Get out the door to go do something with the kids
11ish-2ish	Joey wakes up, nurse him again Feed Cora and Charlotte (and myself) Cora and Joey go down for a nap work on my book	1ish	Make and serve lunch.
2-5:30ish	work on my book kids come home from school get them a snack do lots of chores make (or at least plan) dinner	2ish	Feed Joey. John and Cora nap. Dan and Jane nap or read. Basically, quiet time.
		3-5:30ish	Chores followed by screen time. At last I can crawl my way to a computer.
5:30-9ish	Danny comes home from work make dinner eat dinner clean up after dinner spend some time with family scriptures as a family kids to bed	<--	same
9-11ish	Danny working on his homework and me working on my book (or other projects) side by side at a computer At some point we decide to go to bed, and it usually takes a while because we end up talking a lot.	<--	same, except kids will probably get to bed more around 10 pm because it's still light outside
11-6:30-9ish	Sleep	10:30-6:30ish	make an effort to get to bed earlier, since I have to get up earlier in order to get in a run

This summer we have several trips/vacations planned.

We leave on Monday for St. Louis. Danny has a business trip there, so it'll be me and my +5 shortstacks terrorizing the neighborhood. It was really fun last year, in spite of being massively pregnant. But then, I only had our 3 oldest. The two littles will make it significantly harder.

Sometime next week we leave for Utah.

We will be in Utah for my brother's wedding on June 11!

On our way home from Utah we will swing around up to Yellowstone. It's not on the way at all, but it is where my sister in law lives. We will visit them for a few days and see the park, which Danny is really excited about. I am kinda neutral, but it should be fun.

Sometime in July we will go to Nauvoo with some friends. It'll probably be the weekend of July 4.

Sometime in August we will go to Cedar Rapids.

Lots of day trips in there. Innumerable, unending trips to the swimming pool with my brood. Sigh. I can survive anything for 12 weeks...right...? Ever since I was about 10 years old, summer has been the worst time of year. It really clashes with my value of work and being with interesting people. My kids are interesting, it's just... a different kind of interesting that is not satisfying and involves a lot of gritted teeth and trying really hard to not collapse in tears from the constant complaints and yelling and whining. So. Yeah. Fun fun for me. Summer with 5. At least the baby always loves me, even when he's crying hysterically. Of late, he has turned into a total momma's boy. He only calms down sometimes when I pick him up, which, although a bit logistically annoying, is actually very endearing and, dare I say, rewarding.

The other big vacation Danny is taking is in October when I will be presenting at the CGSI conference. We will all go out there together and he will watch the kids during the day while I present. I hope that it might be possible for him to sneak in to see me present at least one time. But we will see.