This year having summer end is killing me. Usually I am all for getting back to school, having a break from my kids during the day and a more organized life. This summer is different. This was my last summer with Courtney. She turned 18, is going to be a senior and next year moving out and away. This summer I made the commitment to be more present, which means a lot of things went undone. That being said, I am super excited to get back to a routine. This year is going to be intense. I have three kids attending 3 different schools with all different times for everything. One kid is going to school in a different district (special, super cool school) and it doesn't follow the same days as the district we live in and the other two go to. Oliver will be in Preschool a couple of days a week too. The great thing is even with all the craziness, it will be very predictable.
Write down all the school start and pick-up times. If you have kids all going to the same school, you are lucky. This year I sat down and wrote each kids school times. Courtney: 7:45am-2:15pm Alex: 8am-3:40pm Claire: 8am-10:45am Oliver 9:30am-11:30am
Determine travel time. If your kids are riding the bus, or walking this may not really affect you, but you can write down the bus pick-up and drop off times here. Once I know drive time, I set an alarm in my phone for the time we need be leaving the house. I don't drive Courtney to school, we live a few blocks from her school and she walks. In fact I don't have to worry about her, she's a senior and takes care of herself. Alex will be riding the public transport to school in the mornings, we have figured out his bus route and how long it takes to get to school. However, I will be picking him up each afternoon. So knowing the drive time is important so I know when I need to leave my house in the afternoons. Claire's school is 4 blocks from our house, and takes a few minutes to drive. And Oliver's school is less than a block and we can walk there in 5 minutes.
Plan your trips. I like to make my errands and grocery shopping trips in the morning. So once I drop Claire at school I will do those things with Oliver. On the mornings Oliver is in school my time is less and I would rather spend it doing computer work so I am more present when I have kids home.
Appointments. I really try to schedule these for after school before dinner. My kids do not love missing school and the whole check in/out process is annoying to me. At least Courtney is 18 and can do that herself. Find what works best for your schedule. I do this because if Courtney has an appointment, Alex can watch the little kids.
Make changes. As necessary, you will have to adjust until you have your routine fine tuned. It takes me a good 4 weeks or more to get settled in our new school routine. It is ok to have hiccups and bumps happen and figuring out ways to avoid the bottlenecks of life.