How She Does It

BIG kudos to Law School mom, who inspired me to answer this question myself.

Cause yes, I get the same question every day and yes it makes me insane. I do have four kids. I do volunteer at school and with CASA. I do run marathons. I do go to law school. I do have friends and a husband.

Here's a typical school day in my life. Not that anyone asked online, but because EVERYONE asks in real life and I am sick of their amazement. It isn't that bad really. Is it?

5:00 my alarm beeps from my cell phone.
5:01 I turn it off.
5:02-5:15 (or 5:30 if I can afford it) I lie in bed thinking about the steps I must take to get ready for the day, considering whether I can skip my run, my classes, my other obligations.
5:15 I decide that I am not a quitter today. So I put in my contacts.
5:20 After dropping my contacts several times and failing to get them in feeling ok a few more times, I get up, take a piss and jump into running clothes.
5:30 (or 5:45 if I dawdle some more continuing to contemplate why I do the things I do) I get outside and begin to run. Most days I cover five to eight miles, although on Saturdays it is always more than ten.
6:30ish Run over, I log my miles and get ready to start my day by checking to be sure my middle schoolers are bus ready. Also wake up (first time) younger two kids.
6:45 Out of bath, I wake up (time two) younger kids. Husband may be up by now.
7:00 Get my lunch together and start the endless process of straightening my gross hair.
7:10 Threaten younger children with loss of life and limb if they don't get moving.
7:15 Gather stuff for school while getting my makeup on. (aka slapping on moisturizer and mascara)
7:20 Throw children's covers off and physically roll them out of bed. Brush their hair because they never get this right. (They also rarely wear nice/matching clothes, but we are working on one goal at a time, and letting this slip as "self-expression".)
7:30 Kiss kids and take off.
7:40 First stop is for my commuting partner. He's usually not totally ready so I get to chat with his family. Fun, I like them.
7:45 Start out again.
8:15 Arrive at school.
8:20 Greet friends, get books and notes together for class.
8:30 Class 1 (Where I sometimes eat my breakfast while taking notes)
9:50 Class 2
11:30 Meeting of some kind, either on campus or off-campus for CASA
12:45 Class 3
2:00 Lunch if I am lucky. Check email, get organized about what I need to study at night.
2:30 Court, for CASA.
3:30 Scurrying home, almost always using this time to make phone calls, especially after dropping off my commute partner.
4:00 Greet kids for homework time. This involves them bringing all their work into my room, and me overseeing spelling and etc while hearing about their day. Usually this takes about an hour.
5:00 Chores for kids while I start to study. Usually dinner is either something I made on the weekend and froze or is prepared by one of my kids, who love to cook. So dinner is usually started now.
6:00 Dinner, not all together. Husband comes home around now and takes over kids, often taking them to gym.
6:30 Studying begins. Usually this is two hours. Sometimes it is very productive and can run three hours, but more often it is the two hours husband is gone or involved with the kids, and some of the time it isn't really productive.
8:30 Get lunches ready, read to kids or hear them read, supervise bath time.
9:00 Good night to kids, check email, do blog posts, check plans for tomorrow.
10:00 Get my room clean, check in on laundry and look at the day's mail. Some days call sister who is in middle of life crisis. Almost always watch TV at this point.
11:00 bedtime for me.
11:30 when I am lucky, actually fall asleep, having thought through all the things I need to think about, and peed about twenty times, and checked on kids.

It doesn't look that overwhelming and it isn't. The ONLY days that are crazy are when I have to add in a makeup class or two meetings conflict, or when kids functions and mine cause a big time crunch.