How to Juggle Rinks, Driving, Cooking, Cleaning, and That Whole Job Thing

Note from Ice Mom: Normally you’d see the Ask the Expert feature today. The Ask the Expert interview with Renée from Rainbo Sports about figure skate boots is a really good one. At least, half of it is – her half. My half is…blank. Yeah. Imagine my surprise/shock/horror/disbelief when my recording didn’t just sound crummy, it didn’t sound at all. Anyway, I’ll be working to re-record my questions and upload the interview. In the meantime…

I’ll be the first to admit: I’m a lousy juggler. I try very hard to drive all over the county, work, cook, clean, write, sew, and sleep. However, I’m not fabulous at this. What follows are my successes and failures.

Flexible work schedule. This isn’t to my credit; it’s to my boss’s . I’m a writer. As long as I meet my deadlines, my boss is cool with me setting my own hours. I’m really lucky that way. My flexible schedule allows me to take off at 2:30 on Wednesday afternoons to drive Ice Girl to the rink and still have a half-day on Friday. Of course, I have to show up in my cubicle at the crack of dawn, but that flexibility is wonderful.

TV? I just don’t have the time. When I’m not at work, I’m either sleeping, eating, or working on something else. I don’t have time for TV, which is fine by me. I never watched it as a kid, so I don’t really miss it much. Of course it’s summer, so I can talk big about not missing shows. When Dexter starts his killing spree in the fall, I’ll feel a little deprived on Sunday nights, though.

Cooking. I love to cook. Back in the day, before ice, off-ice, ballet, skate sharpenings, and competitions, I looked at my time in the kitchen as my creative time. Now, I look at it as a way to make up time on other nights. I try not to feed my family too much fast food or fish sticks (man, I love fish sticks). I am not too proud, though, to serve them leftovers. I mean, planned overs. Last night was one of those rare stay-at-home nights. I started the charcoal, brined the chicken, and filled the grill rack with chicken breasts, bratwurst, and hamburgers. Three guesses what they’ll be eating for the next three days? I’d much rather grill once for three meals than grill three times for three meals.

Scheduling. Ice Girl skates at three different rinks this summer (down from six during the school year), teaches Learn to Skate, dances at the ballet studio, and exercises with her trainer. I maintain a master schedule on my work computer, transfer it to my wallet calendar, which I transfer to the kitchen calendar. It’s not the greatest system, but for the most part we show up at the right place on time-ish.

Cleaning. Hoo-boy. Right now you could come to my house and I wouldn’t be too embarrassed, but during the school year I might have pretended I wasn’t at home. No one in my family wants to clean, but we’re doing better with a clear division of labor. I’m in charge of the kitchen, dishes, cooking, and groceries. Ice Dad’s in charge of laundry and barking at us to put our clothes in our drawers. Ice Girl is in charge of keeping her mess under control and the floors. It’s working for the most part, but during the school year it’s a struggle.

Driving. Ice Dad and I are sharing the driving during the summer. He’s been taking Ice Girl to and from the rink in the mornings and I have the evening and weekend shift. During the school year, I used him as my relief pitcher. He’d fill in for me on those 6 a.m. ice times when I couldn’t get my rear end out of bed.

Exercise. I’m not great at fitting this in, either. When I’m sitting at the rink I’m working on my blog and studying up for my quiz in the car (Mom, did you see my double Salchow?). I really prefer to take the dog for a walk in the evening for my exercise because Ice Dog loves it so much. It’s been raining so much that I haven’t really been able to…I know…a million-and-one excuses.

Errands. I try to stop at the grocery store, pharmacy, gas station, and post office on my way to or from the rink. Tomorrow I’m hoping that I can swing by the car wash on my way to the rink and drop off a package at the post office’s automated teller on my way home. Combining trips saves on gas, but it’s difficult during the school year because Ice Girl has homework after ice time.

Sleep? Er. I’m lousy at this, as my nagging husband reminds me every hour, on the hour. I’m up writing a blog post some nights. We’re storm spotters, so Monday night we were out watching clouds and monitoring the flash flooding. I sleep in on the weekends, but I know this sleep deficit is not a good habit. As I write this, I found out that spotters are on standby for the overnight. Fun, but lousy for my sleep schedule.

Social. Well, I’m social at the rink, when I’m not writing or watching my kid. I call my mom on the way to work most mornings. I set aside time on my Friday afternoons to have coffee with a friend. Ice Dad and I go on hikes, watch a movie occasionally, and try to smear each other at cribbage. (He has dumb luck.) I’m not the most social being, but I have fun.

I’m sure I left important parts out. Like my hair cut. Geez. It’s outta control. Anyway, let’s continue the conversation in the comments. How do you balance it all? Do you let some things go and not look back? Are you Super Ice Parent? Can you teach me? Better yet: can you cut hair?

Do you have a question for Ice Mom or the Advisory Board? Can you cut hair? Can you fix online recording systems? Do you have an idea for a post? Do you want to write a post? Great! Give me a night off! Are you a figure skating expert? Wanna appear on Ask the Expert in July? Terrific! E-mail me at icemom.diane@gmail.com. Seriously. I love e-mail.

Photo Credits:
Juggling silhouette: Criss Cross Circus on Flickr.com Creative Commons
Juggling ball breakout: JDAC on Flickr.com Creative Commons
5 Hoops: Fire Tom on Flickr.com Creative Commons

Lynne

Because I don't work, I have plenty of time during the day for grocery shopping, paying bills, cleaning, cooking, sewing, home repairs, etc. But I have 3 very active boys, and once they come home from school my life is not my own with skating, hip-hop, soccer, baseball, basketball, music lessons, tennis, track among others.

I'm not a big TV watcher, but I do love to read. Luckily I can get that in when I'm sitting in the waiting room at hip-hop or music lessons. And I have plenty of time to read in the summer.

About 4 years ago, I bought a white board calendar and at the beginning of every month I erase the old month and fill out the new month. I color code for each kid, and that way I know in advance when I have to be in 2 or 3 places at the same time and need to arrange rides. Everyone checks this each morning so we all know what to expect for the day.

I do most of the driving, but my husband drives for weekend skating, and very often I'll e-mail him at work to let him know he has to be at this field at this time to pick up this kid. Unless there's a conflict, we go to weekend and evening games as a family.

My social life is more limited than I'd like, but I still get together with friends about once a month. And I often spend extra time at the grocery store, the dump, Target or wherever I run into people I know catching up with them. I do most of my socializing at the rink or at the fields.

In the summer and winter I'm actually good about exercise because my skater and I do a conditioning/strength training workout together. During the spring and fall sports seasons we just don't seem to have the time to fit it in. We motivate each other when there are other things we'd prefer doing (like cleaning the toilet, I really don't like to exercise) And next year my youngest goes to a different school with an earlier start time so I'm going to start walking with a friend 1-2 mornings per week, which will make my dog very happy.
niuiceprincess

Just wondering if any of the ice moms here have ever thought to join the adults basic class, if your child is on the ice at the same time (either teaching or in another class). Another adult in my rink did that while her child was in pre-alpha, and now she's in Freestyle 2 and daughter is in Gamma. They even did a mother/daughter number at our last ice show. It was beautiful to watch. Someday when I have a daughter of my own I hope to skate with her as well.
Hilda

Isn't Ice Girl lucky to have you drive her around? My mum asks me to take the subway everywhere. To the rink, to the studio, to the gym, to school. Well I walk to the gym.
http://icemom.net Ice Mom

Hey, Hilda. I'd say this: you're lucky to have public transportation. No bus, subway, or train for us.

I tell you: if I could avoid carting Ice Girl around, I would!
http://icemom.net Ice Mom

Good idea for a post! Thanks!
http://icemom.net Ice Mom

Good idea for a post! Thanks!
http://icemom.net Ice Mom

I don't know how you'd manage three boys without being a stay-at-home mom! I have a hard enough time chasing after Ice Girl. Throw games and practices on top of it and I'd be sunk!
mama helada

Juggling – just add that to the list of things that I'm bad at!

Although my kids are younger, there seems to be no shortage of activities to get them to – and the scary thing is that it's only going to get worse! Yikes!

I'm a working mom, plus my job requires me to travel, so trying to keep everyone's schedule straight is a fine art. I've taken to using my Outlook and Blackberry (shhhh, they're from work!) to keep everything in order. If it's not on the schedule, I'll forget it.

My job is somewhat flexible, in that if I really need to, I can access the network via VPN at home, so on the days I need to leave by 3pm to drive the 23 miles home to get my kids and drive the next 11 miles (in crappy rush hour traffic) to the ice rink, I can still do what I need to for work. The travel piece is difficult to work around – I won't lie, so on those days I try to plan as best I can around my kids' and my husband's schedule (his job is NOT flexible).

TV? What's that? Ha ha! I have some shows I try to watch, but it's usually a fairly futile effort.

Cooking – I love to cook, but so often, we are rushing home from work/school and trying to get out the door to whatever activity is going on that night that I don't get the enjoyment factor very often. I try to remember to thaw out the meat and come up with things that are preparable in 20 minutes or less. Ground beef gets served a little too often in our house! If I screw up and forget, I'll pick up a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket and serve it with an easy side dish (however, I will admit that the frozen pizzas and fish sticks do make appearances on our dinner plates as well). I try to avoid take out and fast food, primarily for the healthy factor, but also for the financial factor too (hey I have ice time to pay for!).

Cleaning – I'm awful at this. I try to keep up with the worst of the filth, but this is an area that often slides in our house. Don't get me wrong, I have people I know whose homes are far, far worse than mine, but my house would NEVER be featured in Good Housekeeping.

Driving – Just call me TaxiMom. Nuff said.

Exercise – my one moment just for me. I'd like to be able to do this more often, but I have so many things competing for my time I'm lucky to be able to hit my class once a week. Tonight's my night – and it will require a fine balancing act and more than a little luck for me to be able to get there tonight.

Errands – I literally add these to my schedule. If I don't, they won't get done. My lunch break at work is most often used for this and typically no real 'lunch' actually happens for me.

Sleep – Oh yeah, that's what I'm supposed to be doing when the sun goes down! Typically, I'm still trying to get things accomplished come bed time, so lights out for me has progessively gotten pushed further and further back, while wake up time seems to come earlier and earlier. If by some wierd twist of fate I'm able to try and go to bed early, I'm usually so wired I can't sleep anyway.

Social – Ha ha ha ha! That's a good one. All I have to say is thank god for Facebook and e-mail. Otherwise, I'd never talk to any of my friends!
guest

My daughter and I started together about 4 years ago and it's been great. It was something we could do together. However lately it's been more difficult fitting my practice in. She's competing preliminary this year and it's become much more difficult for her to effectively practice on public ice (and I don't qualify to skate freestyle yet). And her time commitment has increased so I have less time I can just take off work and go. I seem to be watching a lot more now. Anyway, hopefully I will get back to a better schedule for myself at some point. The skating is fun and great exercise. I highly recommend it!!
Bea

I take the bus most of the time or try to organise skating for weekends when neither of my parents work, or for weekends when neither of them do so they can drop me off and pick me up. I don't have off-ice or any of that stuff but coach has started suggesting it and my parents say its like swimming without a pool but they've grudgingly agreed to book me in for some ballet lessons with my old dance teacher.

Currently I have about 2-3 days a week when I have something skate-related on (since my parents now let me practice more than once a fortnight- thanks for the advice Ice mom, it really helped, as long as I pay for practice I can practice whenever I want and they just pay for coaching) but coach is saying I need more practice and off-ice so I suggested to my parents that I should get on the bus which stops outside school to my rink after school which would be more convenient for when they're working so that's probably what I'll end up doing if I start skating more.
http://icemom.net Ice Mom

I don't know what I'd do if my job required travel. Right now, someone says “Plane tickets,” and I find an excuse to leave the room. I hate job-related travel. Yuck. If I am gone from home for some reason, things fall apart, so travel wouldn't work for me.

Mama helada, you and I seem to be driving vans in parallel universes! Race you to the grocery store to get the first rotisserie chicken!
http://RaisingFigureSkaters.com Deb Chitwood

Great post, Ice Mom! Who can’t relate to juggling problems?! I’m NOT Born Organized. FlyLady has helped me the most: http://flylady.net/. She’s awesome!
Jozet at Halushki

Whoo! Okay, here we go!

Google Calendar: I owe my life to Google, at this point. I have a color coded calender for every person in the family (including the 3yo) a master family event calendar, and a sometimes I pay attention to holidays. I am organized to a fault. I still manage to miss an event here and there, but without it…I don't even want to think. The great thing about Google Calendar is that I can allow access to the grandmothers (so they are less likely to miss events, as well as know when to offer rides) and I can view it from any Internet connection. As long as Google's servers are working. I actually have a ophthalmologist appointment scheduled for fall of 2013. So that whole Mayan calendar thing is a hoax, if you're asking my ophthalmologist.

Ride Shares – grandmothers, friends, husband, me. I have on occasion been known to send out messages to Facebook asking if anyone could get my daughter from the rink. I'm hoping I know my friends from college and work as well as I think I do.

Food – lots of grab and go and I try to keep it healthy. I don't like to depend on pizza more than once a week. And I adore fish sticks.

Cleaning – Well, I have three kids, so they make a big mess. However, I also have 3 kids with chore lists, so it kind of evens out.

Work – I work part time in the evening, so I'm home all day. Mostly. I mean, I'm home, but I'm not at Stay At Home Mom. Stay At Rink Mom? I don't know. I should have never bought a house; I should have bought an RV.

Somehow, we also fit in school, travel soccer schedule, gymnastics, yoga, conditioning, violin, piano, Girl Scouts, pre school. I don't know how. It's a mystery.

Television – Yeah, not so much. We rent movies. I watch movies while folding laundry. My 11 year old recently asked me who Adam Lambert was. On Turn Off TV Day at school, my kids ask if they can watch for once for crying out loud. I'm not a television fascist – it's just that there is no time.

Down Time – Every once in a while, my kids will complain that they have no down time. So we pull back and give them down time. Sometimes, about 2 hours into the down time, they are arguing, so I give them chores to do. Other times we just take entire weekends to chill out and hang with friends. However, by Monday morning, they are raring to go.

It's hectic. But along with all the other good that comes out of all this is the basic fact that they really won't have any time to get in trouble. Which I don't think they want to do anyway. But idle hands, and all that.
SkatingSisters

My husband and I were just talking about how we never seem to be home together anymore. I work past dinner time two days a week. Because of the summer break it is easier to work 2 long days than 4 part time days. My daughter skates 3 mornings a week with an afternoon session sometimes. During the summer we dont have off ice conditioning. Maybe the coach thinks that playing outside, swimming, and biking are enough conditioning.

What has been complicating the schedule is my other daughter stopped skating and has decided to try cheerleading. Cheerleading is three nights a week.

As far as the house, I hate cleaning and this schedule hasnt changed that. I love to cook, but unfortunately our local fast food places now our names and probably have my debit card number memorized. I think the worst place is the car. My daughters are under 10, and they are messy. Once a week we shovel out the car. I look like a crazy woman at the car wash. Skates in 95 degree heat, my down coat for the rink, cheerleading clothes, a soft cooler of snacks and the piles of books and things the girls play with intermixed with the trash!
ohjennran

i love fly lady, never get past the clean sink tho.
http://icepact.blogspot.com MER11

This is a great idea! My son started skating when he was 4 years old. He loved skating, but was too young and unskilled to go on the ice alone. I started taking lessons so I could skate with him. My Kid is good enough to skate without me now, but we have a blast skating together! And I've found a rewarding sport and fun physical activity for me. Everybody wins! (Except maybe my bank account!)
http://icemom.net Ice Mom

SkatingSisters, you've just described my van, but I only have one kid on the ice. I drove a co-worker to lunch today. Here's what I had to throw out or into the back seat:

1. half-eaten Pop-Tart
2. The contents of a makeup bag, scattered
3. One icky skate sock.
4. Two pink Converse shoes.
http://icemom.net Ice Mom

I have a shiny sink! I did fly lady for a while. My sink is still shiny and I fight the good fight against clutter on my dining room table. We do a 27-fling boogie when we clean, but I'm nowhere near the ideal fly lady!
Kristina

As an adult who is skating, for me it is all routine. Up at 4:30am, on the ice at 5:30am, off the ice at 7am (unless i’m super close to getting a new element and then i try to stay on longer) stretch & cool-down, off to the metro by 7:30am to get the last parking spot at about 7:50am, on the metro, in the office by 8:45am, off by 4:45pm (unless there is a last minute filing) back on the Metro, grab my car home by 6:15pm slip in a few minutes of strength, then set up coffee pot (hooray for coffee pots on timers) pack lunch for the next day, lay out my skate clothes, pack work clothes in my backpack. Then if the SO is home I eat dinner with him or if he is still at the office I eat by myself.

As for cleaning, we kind of have to do that as we go. It’s a 600 sq. ft. condo. If you don’t put things away then you trip over it. Also, I watch tv in the sense that as I am going about preparing for the next day the TV is on in the background. again, in a 600 sq.ft. condo you can have the tv on and hear it no matter where you are and see it from most areas of the place as well. I don’t really sit down and watch tv unless I really need some down time. Otherwise, most tv doesn’t interest me.

Everything else…that’s what the weekends are for. I have no clue what I’ll do when I have kids, but for now. I can keep track of myself and the SO.
Kristina

As an adult who is skating, for me it is all routine. Up at 4:30am, on the ice at 5:30am, off the ice at 7am (unless i'm super close to getting a new element and then i try to stay on longer) stretch & cool-down, off to the metro by 7:30am to get the last parking spot at about 7:50am, on the metro, in the office by 8:45am, off by 4:45pm (unless there is a last minute filing) back on the Metro, grab my car home by 6:15pm slip in a few minutes of strength, then set up coffee pot (hooray for coffee pots on timers) pack lunch for the next day, lay out my skate clothes, pack work clothes in my backpack. Then if the SO is home I eat dinner with him or if he is still at the office I eat by myself.

As for cleaning, we kind of have to do that as we go. It's a 600 sq. ft. condo. If you don't put things away then you trip over it. Also, I watch tv in the sense that as I am going about preparing for the next day the TV is on in the background. again, in a 600 sq.ft. condo you can have the tv on and hear it no matter where you are and see it from most areas of the place as well. I don't really sit down and watch tv unless I really need some down time. Otherwise, most tv doesn't interest me.

Everything else…that's what the weekends are for. I have no clue what I'll do when I have kids, but for now. I can keep track of myself and the SO.
Pokohorse

im only 13 and have nooooooooo social life outside the rink
on mon,wed,thur, i have skating and i also have strech on thursday.
I have phys. therapy on tuesday and friday and i work on a farm saterdays
I go to the gym on sunday and try to go after phys. therapy.
sunday is my sleep-all-morning-frantic homework day.