For our kids, today is the first day back to school from winter break. Since they are on a year-round schedule their last day was December 19th. Kristen and I are especially thankful for our flexible work situations. I have the opportunity to work from home at least a day per week and so does Kristen. Along those lines, between my Christmas vacation time and Kristen’s parents coming to town, we really only had 6-7 work days where either Kristen or I had to flex our schedule.

It was a fun break for them. They had lots of visitors. They got to go to lots of cool places like the beach, Birch Aquarium, Cabrillo, and about a hundred other places which I forgot. And we used this time to draw a line in the sand on some discipline things which will hopefully help mom and dad in the months to come. (It is a fact, our kids are normal!)

So, today we are back to the family routine.

7:00 AM Everybody up. Mom takes her shower and the everyone else rubs their eyes and does early morning trance walks around the house.

7:30 AM Breakfast for the kids, coffee for the ‘rents.

7:45 AM Everybody dressed, except dad who usually starts his morning blog routine at 7:15.

8:15 AM School uniforms on, mom marches the kids up the hill. Dad publishes whatever he is working on and gets showered/dressed for work. (Hey, I’m a dude… only takes me a minute or two.)

8:30 AM Kristen comes back and we drive to the YS offices.

8:45 AM Kristen drops me off and heads to her office. (Sometimes this is reversed.)

2:00 PM Either mom or dad leaves work. Since Kristen’s job is PT right now… that’s usually mom.

2:40 PM Paul gets out of school.

2:50 PM Megan gets out of school.

3:00 PM Home, snacks and homework for everyone.

5:30 PM Go get dad from work. Sometimes earlier or later.

6:30 PM Dinner, play time, TV time, etc.

8:00 PM Kids bed time.

It has been fun having them home. This is our first go-round with a year round school and we are already stressing out about what to do in April for their 3-week break and July for their 6-week break… but so far we like it.

We need a regular sitter. Bad! Either that or we need to adopt a teenage girl to live with us and watch the kids when they come home. With my crazy schedule and Kristen getting more and more hours reality is setting in… we can’t do it alone!