Five Goals for a New School Year

My first goal with this new school year is to finish my morning routine on time. My typical morning routine is to get up around 5:30am, do my SAVERS activities from The Miracle Morning (see post) until about 6:15 while I drink my pre-workout, and then workout until 7. I started out that way last year, but slowly my 7am end time drifted until I wasn’t finishing up my workout until about 7:15 – 7:20am. This didn’t always set us up for a good morning. We were ever late for school, but we were definitely pushing it. 

This year, since I have to take kids to multiple schools in the morning, we actually have to leave a little earlier than previous years. This leaves me no extra time in the morning and I really need to have my workout done at 7am to get us out the door on time. 

Another goal for this school year is to…try new breakfast ideas. I know, I know, I have had this goal for a long time and never seem to make progress on it. For the last couple years, my kids have been having a few breakfasts a week at school. This meant that I only had to come up with breakfast ideas for around three days a week, which wasn’t too difficult. Cereal, waffles, and then maybe another cereal or egg day and we’d call it good. 

This year, however, my kids aren’t going to have any breakfasts at school so my minimal choices are going to get boring quick. I am really struggling to come up with different ideas for breakfast, so I decided to ask the connoisseurs of our morning breakfasts to see if they had any ideas. My son said he would eat some sort of egg bite concoction made with eggs and cheese in a muffin tin. That’s about as far as I got with suggestions, so I guess we’ll start there and see how it goes. I also wanted to just look at the school breakfast menu for ideas, so we’ll see what I get from there. 

Finally, I know when my kids stay at grandma’s house, they shovel oatmeal in like it’s their last meal. For some reason, I can never get them to eat it when they are at home. I have my suspicions that it’s due to the brown sugar bowl that grandma gives them access to, but I’d love to get oatmeal on the weekly breakfast menu. Anyone out there with oatmeal ideas, please send my way! 

Next on my school goals for this year is to give my kids more responsibility in the mornings. We started that last year and it went well. My son started wanting to shower in the mornings before school, so he set his own alarm and got up to shower and get ready. For my daughter, I would set out her clothes and wake her up. She would do the rest. 

This year, I hope to get them involved more with the breakfast prep, which would make it a lot easier on me. Also, I’d like my daughter to start picking out her own clothes and to start setting an alarm to get up on her own. These two changes would make a big difference in our mornings and almost remove all my involvement except breakfast and driving them to school. Mom win! 

A fourth improvement for this year would be for me to check in with teachers more. The last couple years have been interesting with the pandemic. The year before last, parents weren’t even allowed in the school and all communication was done through apps and notes. Last year, we were allowed into the school but I think the previous year had some lingering effects and I didn’t go into the school much. 

This year, especially for my younger daughter, I’d like to go in and connect with her teacher more often. Since my son is in middle school, this goal doesn’t apply, but I would like to keep more in tune with what they are doing in his classes. 

Finally, another goal I have this school year is to attend more school activities and functions and to volunteer if I possibly can. The last couple years, activities and school functions have been very limited, if any at all. Last year, things started to get a little back to normal, but we still didn’t attend as many as I would have liked. I love my kids getting involved and being part of the community. Also, the last couple years, they didn’t ask for volunteers or chaperones on any of the field trips (if they had any at all). 

Hopefully this year, we can attend most of the school functions and start to meet more people again. Also, I would love to volunteer and go on a few more field trips before my daughter out grows them. It can be difficult since I work full time, but taking a day off to go see some llamas or to hike a trail is well worth it (even if I complain about it ahead of time and question why I signed up all the way until we leave). 

So there we go. More goals to add to my list. What about you, do you have any goals for this school year? I’d love to hear about them and maybe add another to my list! Good luck!