The morning commute

Mornings at the house are hectic.

From not wanting to get out of bed, to getting showers and food, to getting everyone dressed and out the door in a good mood. It can be trying at time.

Up until recently our morning schedule was supposed to look like this:

6:00am - everyone up
6:15am - dad and baby eat, mom showers
6:15-6:30am - unnecessary slow drinking of hot cup of coffee
6:30am - baby goes up with mom while she gets ready. Dad uses the bathroom and showers. This step varied in amount of time taken.
6:45-7:00am - dad showers
7:00-7:25am - rush rush rush to get dad and baby out the door. Mom commuted separately despite the fact that we work at the same place.

The rule used to be that if we weren't out the door by 7:25am, it didn't pay to leave until 7:35am. The daycare we send the kid to has a girl with Cerebral Palsey who uses a wheelchair and has very limited use of her limbs. A bus come to pick her up right around the time that we would be getting to daycare if we were even a little late. And the bus takes forever to get her loaded up, strapped in, and on the go. This isn't me complaining about a girl who needs help. Not even a little bit. I don't begrudge her or the bus driver, I just hate idling in the car. Added bonus: traffic around here is terrible at that time.

I found myself getting ANGRY in the car one particularly stressful day. I hit every red light, there were lines at all the stop signs, bad drivers, and the bus. Our daycare is on a single lane county road right next to a main highway. Cars line up behind the bus and once they bus moves they aren't very accommodating to cars wanting to turn left into the parking lot. I checked, that aren't any sensible other ways to get there. I decided while sitting in the care on what turned out to be a 40-45 minute commute (This is important to know because I live a mile from work and daycare if 5 miles from home. This is a 10 mile round trip.) that things needed to change. We we stressed and late daily.

7:25 didn't work and neither did 7:35 or 7:45. It just wasn't happening. I shifted my work day and I now leave at 8:00am every morning with the baby and her mother in the car. This simple change is fantastic. The commute dropped from 35 minutes to 20-25 minutes. Traffic is low, green lights, no lines, no bus. Well, there is another bus that picks up kindergartners on occasions, but it doesn't take near as much time.

We starting sleeping in because the baby sleeps in (this is probably a mistake) but here's the new schedule:

6:00am - alarm goes off and gets turned off (this should stop)
6:10am - alarm b gets snoozed up to 2 times
6:30am - mom and dad get out of bed, mom showers, dad eats (sometimes)
6:30-7:00am - baby gets up whenever she gets up
7:00am - change baby and feed her
7:15am - dad showers sometimes (more on this later)
7:30am - change baby clothes
7:55am - load up
8:00am - leave garage, drop mom at work, swing by daycare, get to work around 8:25 - 8:30.

This simple change in schedule has reduced the amount of daily stress in the house and on the road. The baby spends 50 fewer minutes in daycare daily which means more time at home with us. She's also spending less time in the car with a stressed daddy. We get to spend more time together as a family because of this change and it's great!

I'd love to hear more about how others out there have simplified their lives in the morning, evening, or really any other time.