Shortcuts to Make Life Easier

By Kimberly Hicken

As a working mom with eight kids, I know how hectic life can be. I think I was late for everything for the first twenty years of motherhood. Sometimes, I think the baby purposely waited to poop its diaper until I was on my way out the door. In fact, I think my kids entered a conspiracy against me to make sure I would be late for work at least once a week and late for every party, parent-teacher meeting, church function, and anything else that had a start time. They would take turns plotting against me. I can almost imagine the conversations. They probably met in the closet of the oldest one’s room with a set of plans spread out before them. “Tyler, this is your week to make us late for church. Spill milk all over the table. May, you’re in charge of work. Hide the diaper bag. Better yet, hide the diaper bag and the car keys. Jake, mom was invited over to a friend’s house for a baby shower. It’s important that you make sure she can’t leave on time. Hit your sister, have a temper tantrum, puke on the floor. Do whatever it takes to make mom late for that party.” Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating just a little, but if you are a mom, you can probably relate to how difficult it is to get out the door. Here are a few of the tricks that I picked up along the way to make life just a little bit easier.

Preparation

It seems obvious to say that preparing in advance is helpful, but preparation can go beyond packing the diaper bag the night before, although that is an excellent idea when it comes to going to things like church, parties, ball games, etc.

The Babysitter/Daycare

I never bothered with a diaper bag for daycare. Instead, I left an entire package of diapers and a package of baby wipes with my sitter. I also made sure she had an extra outfit that remained there in case the baby needed to change. If she ended up using the extra outfit (and she did quite often), she would keep the soiled outfit and wash it with her own laundry. That would then become the extra outfit for her house.

Each Monday morning when I dropped my child off, I would include a week’s worth of clothing. I didn’t waste time in the morning getting the baby dressed. It was just one more step that I didn’t need to do. It may have only saved me five or ten minutes, but those few minutes often meant the difference of whether or not I was walking into staff meeting late.

Some of my sitters wanted me to provide meals or snacks for my kids. In those situations, I would try to buy a week’s worth of food items to be left at the sitter’s. For some things, such as snacks, I would leave a month’s worth. It was easier to buy two big boxes of graham crackers and a bag of pretzels to leave at the sitter’s house than it was to try to figure something out for each day.

Clothing

I can’t count the number of times that my kids couldn’t find socks, shoes, a shirt, or pants. I have no idea how many times they went to daycare or to school in clothes that didn’t match or didn’t fit right. I finally came up with a few solutions.

We had a shoe box next to the front door. Shoes were taken off and placed in the box. That helped keep shoes from getting lost.

For clothing, I learned to fold my children’s clothes into what I called “packages.” A pair of pants with the matching shirt would be folded together and placed in their drawers as a “package.” When morning came, all the kids had to do was reach in and pull out a “package,” and they would have everything they needed to get dressed. I discovered this was helpful for the baby also. No more pawing through drawers trying to find an outfit that matched.

As for socks…well, I never did solve that dilemma, but I can tell you what I tried. I tried buying each child their own type of socks. My oldest son got white crew socks. My next son got socks with stripes around the top. My next son got black socks. The next son had short no-show socks. My oldest daughter had blue socks. The next daughter had white socks. You get the idea. It wasn’t perfect, but it prevented children from wearing each other’s socks. (Something that my kids hated when it happened to them.) On the other hand, I had a friend who only bought one kind of socks. All the socks matched. They were all the same size. No sorting or matching socks. You just went to the laundry basket and grabbed two socks and you were done. For myself, socks still remain my nemesis. 😊

Reliable Babysitting

Finding a reliable babysitter was my biggest challenge as a full-time working mom. I lived in a small, rural community. There were no daycares around, only individuals willing to babysit. When I found a good sitter, I made sure that I paid on time and fairly so that I could keep my babysitter.

I also tried to always have a couple of back-up babysitters. When I would hear of someone who would babysit, I would ask them if they would be okay with babysitting once in a while on short notice. You never know when your regular sitter will go out of town on an emergency or just be too sick to watch the kids. I also tried to find at least one person who was willing to watch my child if he was just a little sick. Sometimes kids are too sick to go to daycare where they would be exposing other children, but the aren’t sick enough to warrant staying home from work. I’m thinking a mild case of the sniffles or even a low-grade fever. It’s helpful to find that one individual who will watch your child when they aren’t feeling well.

School

After homework is done, make sure your child puts it right back in his backpack. Go through your children’s backpack every night and find any permission slips that you need to sign. Get them signed and put them back in the backpack. If your child takes a lunch from home, do as much lunch prep the night before as you can. This includes making sandwiches, verifying that you have enough juice boxes, and making sure that the box of fruit snacks is already opened so you’re not wasting time opening it. You get the idea.

Smile and Laugh

When things go wrong, and they will, keep your sense of humor. Sometimes when I was cleaning an entire bowl of spilled cereal and milk off the floor, all I could do was smile, laugh, and think: “Well, at least this makes a good story to tell my co-workers at lunch.” Yelling and getting upset doesn’t clean the milk up any faster, but it will destroy relationships and put everyone in a bad mood.

Humor makes everything better. Sometimes, when everything is going wrong, I’ll look at my children and think: “Someday, when I’m old, I’m going to come and live with you. I’m going to throw my food on the floor, draw on your walls with crayons, and refuse to put on my shoes.” I don’t know if I’ll really do all that, but it makes me feel better and helps me get things done with a smile.