Timing

When I first had kids everyone told me to enjoy them while they were little and I didn't have to run them around. I'm starting to realize what they mean, though it's not too bad yet. My busiest day goes something like this:

6:00 - Kids awake - my wife is so so wonderful.
6:10 - I get up. Breakfast for the kids is already underway. This is why my wife is so so wonderful.
7:30 - Load up the car for school.
8:50 - Drop the kids off and head to preschool.
9:20 - Arrive at the park near preschool to kill a few minutes on the slides before preschool starts.
9:45 - Drop off at preschool and go for a run.
12:00 - Pick up from preschool and head home.
12:25 - get home and make lunch
1:10 - Get my youngest bed for a nap.
2:00 - Play the violin for half an hour.
2:40 - Load up to pick up the big kids from school.
3:05 - Pick them up and drive home.
3:20 - Start the oven for pizza, has to heat to 550 for pizza.
3:45 - The first pizza in the oven.
4:00 - Second pizza in the oven and kids to start very early soccer night dinner, they always eat pizza fast which is why soccer practice night is also pizza night.
4:30 - load up to head to soccer practice, one practice at 5:00, two at 6:00.
7:20 - Get home, two little kids in for a quick bath, two big kids then get showers, everyone in PJ's brush teeth read a book.
8:00 - Tuck in for the night.

This is my busy day as I have preschool and soccer practice on the same day. That makes both my morning and my evening packed. No other day is like this, thank god. If I had to do this five days a week I'd melt into a sobbing ball. By the time I have multiple things going on multiple days in the afternoon, everyone will be in school all day and the mornings will loosen up. It will all balance out. I hope.
The biggest thing about a schedule like that is making sure that you're on time. Somewhere along the line I learned that if you're not at least five minutes early, you're late. That's still how I do things and I always impress that on my kids. There was a pretty significant correlation between those students that showed up to class on time in college, and their grades. Not a perfect predictor of course, but pretty significant.

The single best thing I do timing wise is dinner. My wife usually gets home around 5:30. Sometimes later, sometimes after 6:00. She is awesome and tries to give me a heads up when she thinks her timing will be off so I can plan accordingly. Sometimes this works, sometimes dinner has been cooking for an hour already and there's nothing I can do to slow it down. When everything goes to plan though, when it works perfect, when I'm just finishing plating the food as she walks in the door, it's incredible. To be able to hand her dinner fresh and hot at the exact instant she gets home is such a wonderful perfect thing. People always make fun of the 50's pictures showing a happy wife with a hot dinner as her husband walks in the door. The say that life was never like that and it never was or will be a realistic image of a stay at home spouse. I say they're wrong. When it all comes together perfectly, it's like scoring a touchdown. I feel like doing a celebration dance. My day's work has come together with perfect timing and I am, however briefly, a champion.