back to school routines! with kids over and under 3

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Okay.

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Real quick, before we start this episode, I'm actually recording this part after

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I recorded the first part because I recorded this episode and realized that

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I missed a big part of back to school routines and routines in general when

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you have kids who are, like three and under, but especially with kids who are

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two and under, or if you have babies and toddlers or a baby and a three-year-olds.

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And just how to approach these differently.

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I'll share a little bit in these episodes coming up in this episode

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as well about how I'm recently out of that season of life.

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My youngest is three, she's actually almost four.

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And I used to talk about routines often and simplifying your time and your energy

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and your relationships and your self-care, and your fitness and your health.

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Just.

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Not all of those in depth, but creating simplicity in your life so

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that you can focus on all of those.

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And the thing that I forgot to mention in this episode, I'm gonna say it

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right now, is that if you have babies or toddlers right now, your routines

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are really centered around them.

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That's just the way it is, right?

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It's baby o'clock, it's toddler o'clock all of the time,

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and it just is what it is.

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And so trying to create a really rigid routine or schedule just

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isn't possible for most people.

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You might be somebody who can figure out how to do that, and if you are that

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type of person, then you're probably not listening to this episode anyway.

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But if you are somebody who's I just cannot, I cannot figure

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out how to be consistent.

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I cannot figure out how to.

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Stay, stick to a CHO chart, stick to a cleaning routine.

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Stick to.

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Just basic things that I feel like I should be able to do, and

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you have babies and toddlers.

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It's not you.

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It's not you.

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It's just that I personally don't think that it's sustainable.

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It's not an a realistic goal for the average person to try to achieve

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unless you have a nanny or you have.

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Family who lives with you.

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And even then it's it's still baby o'clock.

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And I wanna let you know that does go away, right?

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You do get to a place where you can communicate with your kids

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like, we have, this is the time for this and this is when we do that.

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And this is when mom does this is when mom works out.

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This is when mom works.

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This is when we go to sleep.

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This is when we do quiet time, right?

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You do get to a place where you can do that.

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And so consistent routines get easier.

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But yeah, that's why I stopped talking about this kind of stuff for the

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last several years on here, and I'm excited to start talking about it

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again because when I am in that season of life It's just not possible and I

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don't want you to feel bad about it.

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There are things that you can do.

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You've gotta be flexible.

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I'll talk about it in the rest of this episode.

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Simplifying your home, your stuff, your clutter, saying no to things.

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And understanding that you're just saying no to things for right now.

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You're not saying no to things forever.

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It's taking things off of your plate.

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It's prioritizing, it's having clear boundaries for yourself,

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and that's what you can do.

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So rather than focus on like, how do I get my kids to let me do things all the time?

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How do I figure out how to do more of the time?

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It's really about, I.

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Doing less, right?

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And especially in culture in like the United States and Canada.

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We just aren't really taught that.

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And I will also tell you that I think that sometimes it can go too far, right?

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We can say, ah, just rest and recover, and then it turns into complacency,

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which I also, am aware of for myself.

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But when it comes to babies and toddlers you give yourself a break.

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Don't expect the perfect routine.

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Know that it does get.

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Easier.

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Easier when your kids get older.

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And other than that, enjoy the episode.

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So thanks so much for being here.

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Let's finish the rest of the episode where I talk about the

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things that go into this episode.

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And I just had to add this in real quick.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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Let's talk about back to school routines.

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So as I'm recording this, my family is still two weeks out from actually being

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in school, and I'll just give you the ages of my kids and what's going on.

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So I have one kid starting high school.

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One kid's starting junior high and one kid's starting kindergarten.

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The other one will be home.

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And the other is my stepson, who is also in high school.

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So we've got a lot going on.

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One of them is doing football every single day.

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The little two ones have gymnastics, possibly soccer, and then my oldest

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daughter is finding all of the clubs that she can join for school.

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So knowing that I am keeping our home routines as simple as possible and

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focused on just getting the everyday essential things that we need to get done,

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what this looks like for us right now.

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I also wanna let you know where we're at right now and where I'm going.

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I'll do a follow up episode to this maybe the first week of September

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or middle of September after we've settled into the routines.

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But I've done this enough times and if you listen to the last podcast episode,

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you know that I have space to share this stuff with you while I'm in it now because

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other areas of my life are simplified.

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Currently when school got out for my kids, we wanted to have a very laid back summer.

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This is the first time ever that my husband has been able to be

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available for them because he's been able to work from home.

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He, we just, we'd had that kind of a space, so we canceled all

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of the sports for the summer.

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All of the activities.

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All of the everything.

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And so we just wanted to be able to go to the park, when we wanna go to the park,

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go camping, when we wanna go camping.

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We took a trip down to Florida actually that was spring.

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But anyway, it's been very laid back.

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My big kids, if you have older kids, teens and preteens, they like to sleep.

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My, they are not up before 11.

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My little kids are up, but it's been like summer.

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Major summertime relaxed, and it's been great.

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But with that has also come a lot of being too, me being too laid back about

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things like their chores, cleaning up their rooms doing our nightly resets.

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We do them all right.

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Like for nothing crazy is going on, right?

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Like we're still able to like, have it easy to be in-house.

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And it's not overwhelming for me, but.

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I am excited to get a little bit tighter with our routines.

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So for us, the essentials that we need to get done are my

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kids cleaning the bathrooms.

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And they don't know this yet, but they're gonna be doing the bathrooms every day.

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Because prior to this, it's been like, we've been trying to figure out how to

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get it so that the kids consistently clean the bathrooms, which is their chore.

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And they just don't like, we're like, dude every Sunday, every

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Wednesday, every whatever.

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Writing it up on the board, like it just doesn't happen.

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And so instead of making it twice a week, they're gonna be doing the bathrooms

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every day until it's a habit because.

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I don't remember.

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I don't remember what day they're supposed to be doing it.

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I don't remember who's supposed to be doing it.

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It's too complicated.

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And so one of the things that I teach when I talk about routines and like

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chores and delegation, is just making it the same for everybody all of the time.

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Like instead of a rotating chore schedule that gets too confusing.

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It's not sustainable for me, and then I can't hold them accountable.

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And then nobody does it.

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It doesn't work.

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So one kid does the dishes every night.

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One kid sweeps the floor every single night.

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They both do their laundry as needed.

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They both clean up their rooms every night.

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Bathrooms used to be twice a week, but now be.

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It's been a year of trying different things.

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It's just not working.

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Bathrooms are gonna be every day.

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So the first thing that I'm gonna be focusing on before school actually

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starts is getting us into this routine, this rhythm again, of the chores

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of Hey, it's nightly reset time.

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Everybody's doing the nightly reset.

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Hey, it's bathroom time.

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Everybody's doing the bathroom.

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So it's part of, it's gonna be a part of the nightly reset now for us.

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Getting them back into that.

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Things like keeping their rooms cleaned and all of that

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so that those things are done.

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Because when those things are done, everything else

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that we have to do is easier.

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Showers and baths are easier.

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When school starts making their lunches are easier, getting homework done, all

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of that stuff is easier when those things are taken care of because the physical

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space in our home is easy to be in.

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And because we have decluttered, by the way, Because our house is decluttered

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and we don't have an amount of stuff that is unmanageable For us, doing

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those things every day is really easy.

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It's, adding the bathrooms in is probably, is gonna make it a little bit longer.

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But it's gonna be like 25 minutes at the end of the day.

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Dishes, sweeping bathrooms, pick up your rooms done.

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Normally it's 15 to 20 minutes, but now with bathrooms it's

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probably gonna be like 25.

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Totally doable, considering that's all we have to do, right?

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And the house is taken care of.

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The, during our nightly resets is when we like pick things up off the

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floor, put toys away, clean off, kitchen counters, all of that, wrap

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up, loose ends, laundry, whatever.

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And I do have other podcast episodes on the nightly reset.

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I also teach it inside of my motherhood simplified course,

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which is a bonus of decluttering simplified, which you can find in

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the description or in the show notes.

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Okay.

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So those are what we're gonna be focusing on.

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And then for these next two weeks, leading up to school and getting back on

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school schedule time, I'm implementing a bedtime again, I am implementing

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more of whatever you wanna call it.

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Rules around like screen time, tv, time.

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TV's off at this time.

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Everybody's in bed by this time.

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I'm not gonna share the times because it's different for all of my kids.

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I have one kid who just, he is a night owl anyway, but quiet time

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in the house is what we have.

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So nine o'clock quiet time.

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Little kids are in bed, my husband and I can hang out and do our thing.

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Everything's taken care of.

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And that's the expectation now, so that they can also start getting used to

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waking up earlier so that when school starts, they can wake up on time.

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We can get everybody to where they need to go.

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And that's at this point, All I'm focusing on.

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'cause that's all we need to do, right?

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That's all we need to do is get those things in place.

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And I know that, I just have to worry about and it's a lot, right?

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I just have to worry about.

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Getting three kids to three different schools every day, and

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then getting them home from three different schools every day.

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Some of them are on buses, some of them are not.

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Getting them home from their practices.

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My son's got football every day, so getting him home from practice,

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getting kids to and from their other activities that they have, right?

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Because those do pick up.

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That's all I'm worried about right now is just getting those things done and.

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When your house is cluttered and you have excessive dishes, laundry, toys,

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messes, just doing that bare minimum feels like a lot, feels chaotic.

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It feels often impossible, and like you never get to a place where

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you're really settled into a routine.

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And that's why I'm gonna do this follow-up episode with you.

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About the beginning of September to let you know how it's going, because

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since my home and the stuff inside of it is reduced, like my kids have

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enough clothes, but not too much.

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My kids have enough toys, but not too much.

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We have enough dishes, but not too much.

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We have everything we need, but not an excessive amounts.

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This makes our routines easier.

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And that's what I want for you.

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That's what I want for you.

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There is no secret, there is no like chore chart.

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There is no magical calendar that will help you manage too much stuff, right?

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And I know that if you have a lot of kids or you homeschool or you have work

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or you have this and that, like it.

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You might have more things to juggle than I do.

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Because I, my husband and I are juggling working from home, two of us working

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from home, all of these kids moving in different directions all of the time.

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So if you have too much going on, sometimes it's a matter of deciding

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what you're going to let go of.

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So I'll give some examples of things that I've let go of over the years.

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Sorry, I had to pause and move away from my mic.

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'cause my daughter.

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Turned on her show behind me and then left.

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Do your kids do that where they just walk in the room, turn on something

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very loud and then leave the room?

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Okay.

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She's back, but hey babe, I'm gonna turn this down just a little bit, okay?

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Okay.

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But it might mean if you have, if your house is cluttered, for sure, you've

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gotta figure out how to declutter.

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There's a free training in the video or in the show notes here that you can get.

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Also get into decluttering, simplify so that you can declutter your house.

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But it could be that you have too much, you have to declutter how

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you're spending your time, which is something that I also do very adamantly.

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And I've been talking about these things in these last several episodes

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about how I've done that and what that's looked like in my business.

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And this podcast, up in this podcast and motherhood simplified over the

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last three years that has looked like.

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Not going live every single day like I used to be not holding free

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challenges as often as I used to.

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Not not talking about simplifying routines because when I had two under two,

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there is nothing to talk about, right?

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I'm just getting through it.

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So sometimes you have to let those things go.

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So those are some things that I let go in my business and let go as

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far as motherhood simplified goes.

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And I'm excited to add those back in because I have the

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time and the space for it now.

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But some other things I let go, like this year, normally I do like a vegetable

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garden, fruit garden, flower, garden.

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And I did none of those this year.

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Honestly, because I.

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At the end of the school year, like I mentioned at the beginning

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of this, we decided to cancel sports, all of that stuff.

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We were all pretty burnt out.

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We were burnt out from sports school work schedules, and we needed that break.

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And my garden takes a lot of time, so I didn't do that this year.

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I'll probably do it next year though, but I did not do it this year.

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I just didn't have the time or the desire or the energy for it.

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And You might need to be making those kinds of decisions too.

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What can you not do this year?

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It doesn't mean that you're not gonna do it forever.

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It doesn't mean that it's gone forever, in seasons of your

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life, sometimes it's gotta go.

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I let go of I also had this is hard to admit, hydro gardens inside

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of my house that I was really excited about a couple years ago.

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But then they became to be too much work for me in the season

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of life that I was in, and I got rid of them and now I miss them.

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And luckily I gave them to somebody in my neighborhood and maybe I

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can talk to her about getting them back if she ever wants them.

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I won't actually do that, I just, some things I had to let go of that,

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let go of some of my kids' sports.

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I let go of things like my gym membership and now I just work out from home.

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And I know that I can always add things back in.

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So after my kids get settled Anyway, my point is, you might need to

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find things that you can say no to.

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No, we're not gonna do this right now.

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For example the other thing, oh, that, here I'm like, I lost my train of thought.

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Here it is.

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My youngest two do gymnastics and soccer.

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That's the things that they like.

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And so school starts in a couple weeks.

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Gymnastics starts in a couple weeks, and soccer starts in a couple weeks.

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And, my husband and I have been on board and been like, yeah, we're gonna do.

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If they're gonna do those because they love to do them.

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Especially my three-year-old, she's not gonna have her buddy around.

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She's gonna be at, Kaleigh's gonna be at school.

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So getting her into gymnastics and soccer is gonna be good.

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But this morning I kinda had a moment of that sounds like too much for me, right?

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Like everybody going back to school, high school, first

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year, high school is a big deal.

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First year of junior high is a big deal.

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First year of tackle football is a big deal.

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First year of kindergarten's a big deal.

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Adding in soccer and gymnastics.

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Just sounds like a lot.

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And they have other rounds of soccer and gymnastics in October.

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So why don't we just skip this session and start them in October,

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which is what I think I'm gonna do.

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So those are the kind of decisions that you can make as well.

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Like maybe I, I'm not saying no forever, I'm just saying No, not yet.

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Let's do one thing at a time and make this so that we can actually.

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Get settled into it without burning ourselves out, because

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I've done that in the past too, and I just don't wanna do that.

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I don't wanna do that.

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And you don't have to do that either.

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So that is it.

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That is our simplified routines.

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Right now, it's just focusing on everybody getting asleep on time,

Krista: 00:16:30

getting the bare minimum done, and getting everybody adjusted into the

Krista: 00:16:34

things that they need to be adjusted in.

Krista: 00:16:36

And while we're doing that, I'm also.

Krista: 00:16:39

Making time for my marriage and making time for my work stuff.

Krista: 00:16:42

And doing that for my husband too.

Krista: 00:16:43

'cause he is got his own needs and his own work stuff.

Krista: 00:16:46

So there's a lot to manage.

Krista: 00:16:48

There's a lot to juggle.

Krista: 00:16:49

And I.

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That's how we're doing it.

Krista: 00:16:52

I will follow up, let you know how it's going, how we're settled in, and

Krista: 00:16:56

what we decide for all these other things that we're gonna do in our life.

Krista: 00:16:59

But best of luck to you during this back to school season, whether you homeschool.

Krista: 00:17:02

I know that's also an adjustment, it's a different adjustment.

Krista: 00:17:05

A reverse adjustment than most people.

Krista: 00:17:07

But best of luck into settling into interior routines.

Krista: 00:17:10

You can do this.

Krista: 00:17:11

Focus on the bare minimum, declutter your house if you haven't, because

Krista: 00:17:14

that will help make everything easier.

Krista: 00:17:17

And I will talk to you soon.

Krista: 00:17:19

Also, if you get into decluttering simplified, it will help

Krista: 00:17:22

you declutter your house.

Krista: 00:17:23

And now included in a bonus in it as a bonus is the motherhood simplified

Krista: 00:17:27

course that goes deep into routines and rhythms and habits and self-care

Krista: 00:17:32

and relation, simplifying your relationships and finding mom friends,

Krista: 00:17:36

setting boundaries, delegation, all of that is inside of that course

Krista: 00:17:39

now, so you can go to the show notes.

Krista: 00:17:42

Find the information for that if you're interested in joining,

Krista: 00:17:45

and I will talk to you soon.

Krista: 00:17:46

Thank you so much for listening and hanging out with me today.