Whether you’re a soccer mom, a football dad, or a volleyball grandparent, you know how important it is to show up for your kids’ games and sporting events.
Here are must pack items to bring along with you to sport events:
Water
I can’t say it enough: You’ve got to stay hydrated, no matter what you’re doing. Even if you think you’re just going to be sitting on the sidelines, remember that the sun can really sneak up on you and get you overheated.
And let’s face it—you aren’t just going to be sitting on the sidelines a lot. You’re going to be on your feet, running with the action, and yelling and cheering your kid on to victory.
Sporting event concession stands are notorious for being overpriced and full of unhealthy, sugary sodas and juices. Water will keep you hydrated during the games and keep your throat from drying out, so you can continue to yell your support. If your child runs off from the sidelines to join you, they’re also going to need plenty of water as well.
If you haven’t been to a sporting event for kids in a while, let’s cue you in on one big tip. Chances are the field will NOT have any kind of bleacher seats for you to use, and if they do, the seats are going to be hard metal that will kill your back.
Go ahead and head this off with some comfy captain’s chairs so you can sit in style. I personally like the type that folds up into the easy-to-carry bags and comes with a cupholder for your bottled water.
Shade
Soccer, baseball, and other outdoor sports can be brutal underneath the spring-time sun. You’re absolutely going to need shade to keep from roasting.
An absolute must-have is sunscreen. SPF 30 sunscreen will block 97% of the sun’s rays and SPF 50 will take that up just a notch to 98%.
Besides the sunscreen to ward off burns and potential skin cancer, stay safe while outdoors by also bringing an umbrella. (It can double to block out the sun but also to be on hand for any random thunderstorms.) A big floppy hat and a nice pair of sunglasses will round out your ensemble and keep you comfy during the game.
Getting ready for a kids’ sporting event should not require all the packing and preparation as if you’re getting ready to storm the beach at Normandy. But it does require some preparation so that you can be comfortable and safe during the game.
It may not be the most hated chore in the household (that’s reserved for that pile of dirty dishes in the sink), but laundry can be a pain in the neck.
It’s not the actual washing and drying that’s difficult—it’s the folding and putting away that can drive you crazy, especially if you’re a parent with lots of little ones causing the amount of laundry to multiply exponentially.
If you’re searching for a way to make this a little easier on you, give these laundry hacks a try:
(Please note: we do not make any money off the links below. We’re simply wanting to make your life easier by providing links if you’re interested.)
1. Get a Flip Fold
If you watch The Big Bang Theory, you’ve probably seen Sheldon folding his clothes with one of these. It’s a clothes folder that you place a shirt on and with three quick flips it is folded perfectly and ready to go out on display at a clothes store.
While it’s not ideal for all clothes, this can save time and make your clothes stack up nicer. Plus, kids love it because it looks like fun and they will be more likely to join in and help.
2. Keep All Your Socks Together
If you’ve done laundry for an entire family, then you know about the mystery sock. That’s the one lone sock that turns up at the end of a laundry session that doesn’t have a mate, no matter how hard you look.
Instead of losing a single sock every washing, invest in a mesh laundry bag. This way, you put all of the socks in the bag, wash them in the bag, and they’re all still together when you take them out at the end.
As an added bonus, the bag can double as a travel case for organizing your clothes on vacation!
3. Separate Your Clothes by Person
I’m sure you’re used to sorting your laundry by color. But if possible, also sort it according to who they belong to. That way, when you get your clothes out of the dryer, you don’t have to do a massive sorting session to see who they belong to.
If that’s not practical in your household, at least consider washing the kids’ clothes separately from the adult’s. That way, when the clothes are finished, you can have your kids help you put up their clothes, saving you sorting time.
4. Pre-Sorted Hampers
If you have the room, invest in a few different clothes hampers and label them: Colors, Lights, Delicates, etc. Whatever system may work for you and your family’s needs is best. But make sure you put the clothes in the right bin and then just toss them in without having to sort them.
5. Combine Laundry with Something You Like Doing
Laundry isn’t just washing, drying, folding, and putting up. It also involves a tedious task—ironing. But if you find yourself dreading this, then try to liven it up.
It may sound goofy but try turning laundry day into a party. Put on some music that everyone will enjoy and dance around a bit as you all put away your own clothes. If you have young kids, you may need to help them a little, but it can still go quicker, or at least it will feel that way.
Laundry hacks can help you gain time
Laundry doesn’t have to be the bane of your existence. As with any chore, it’s all about finding the right mindset and a way to get organized and shave off some time here and there.
Even before our kids are born, we start imagining just how much they can accomplish and how we want to help them get there. One of the biggest “legs up” you can give your children is with daily reading.
Don’t believe me? A recent educational survey showed that if your child reads 20 minutes a day, they will be exposed to almost 2 million words by sixth grade and will score better than 90% of his or her classmates on standardized tests.
Reading should be organic and fluid, so it’s important to work in every opportunity to get a little reading time in. Here’s how you can do just that:
Reading doesn’t have to be from a book
Many people think 20 minutes of daily reading as plopping your child down with a copy of the Cat in the Hat. But that isn’t the only way to get in reading time.
When you’re riding around town, have your child sound out the words on street signs, banners, and advertisements. This will go slowly at first, so be sure to help them out. But as your child builds fluency, you can go faster expecting them to read more and more as you drive.
Also, don’t underestimate the power of comic books to attract hesitant readers. Educators have recently discovered that graphic novels can be a great way of promoting reading, even in the upper grades.
On a final note, television can be a good way to sneak in reading time. Just turn off the volume and turn on the close captioning and they can read along with the TV show (and some of those cartoon shows are a lot less annoying with the sound off).
Get audiobooks and apps
As an early reader, it’s important for your child to hear stories read aloud as they read along with the book. The most obvious form of this is when you sit down with your child at night to read a bedtime story.
But there are other ways for you to get this time in. Some adults may have fond memories of reading along with storybooks and audio tapes as a child.
Now, you can access many of these from sources like Audible. The energetic narrators will engage your child. For younger children, you can help them with word acquisition and phonics. Apps are available, such as Homer and Reading Magic, which can do just that. Finally, check out your local library and look for audio reading kits and books on CD.
Library play date
Speaking of the library, it’s important that you introduce your child to this wonderful place so it can become a fixture in their lives. Take your child to the library for a play date and let them explore the books. Pick one out they would like to take home for the week.
A good rule of thumb is to let your child pick one for themselves while you pick one for him or her based on your preferences. Be sure to get a book for yourself. Seeing that you value reading in your own life is a great way to encourage reading.
While you’re at the library, check out the schedule of activities and be sure to stop by regularly for story time—another great way to sneak in some reading.
Prepare to enjoy the benefits of your child reading
If reading becomes a chore, then your plan to help your child is going to backfire and they will see reading as work. Take time to subtly work in the reading without them realizing it and you have a chance to give them an advantage in today’s highly competitive world.
Let’s face it, life is no longer the same after you have children. Things that you were easily able to do before is no longer that easy. Now instead of doing just 1-2 loads of laundry a week, you now have 2-3x that amount. Instead of figuring out what to eat just for yourself and the hubby, you now have to accomodate the needs and wants of all your kids.
And if you’re lucky, you might just have kids who will eat just about anything…said no mother ever!
Yes, I would love to have a spotless, well organized home every single day, but that is really just wishful thinking. Unless of course you have the luxury of having a full time housekeeper, which I, and most moms, definitely do not. At the end of the day, I just want our home to be in a fairly presentable condition where I wouldn’t be totally embarrassed if we had a surprised visitor swing buy unannounced,
Over the years though, I have incorporated some helpful tactics to make getting things around the house done more easily and efficiently. And the best thing is, once you have kids old enough, you can get them involved.
Stay Organized
One of the best ways I have learned to keep the clutter from piling up everywhere is to designate a home for everything and then stay on top of making sure things go back to its home once it has been used.
For example, we have on one specific counter a pen/pencil holder. Everyone in the family knows that if you need a pen or pencil, you automatically go there…and when you’re done, you put it right back there.
Anything related to electronics go in a designated cabinet. So any time someone is looking for some batteries or a cable for something, I know exactly where to go look.
I have my daughter use this same technique to manage all her things in her room. So now she knows which bin to go to for anything arts/crafts related or which bin contains all her lego toys etc.
It sounds like a huge ordeal to set something up like this but it doesn’t have to be. Start with reorganizing one “new home” a week for each type of item in the house. For example, all office related supplies live in this one cabinet or drawer.
If you’re feeling a little bit more ambitious, you could tackle each living space at a time and decide which items makes sense to have its designated home be there.
The tricky part is to have just one location for things AND keeping everyone on board, otherwise, you will end up right where you started from with things laying around everywhere again.
It really does save some time when you’re looking for something in particular or even when you’re putting things back because you know exactly where it should be or go. Nothing more frustrating than running in and out of each room trying to find where you think something should be and it’s not there.
Image by Markus Spiske via Pixabay
Kids and Their Toys
Are you constantly battling with your kids to get them to pick up their toys? Well do I have a treat for you. I got this idea initially from a co-worker of mine and it works wonders…if you follow through. Here’s how you do it:
The idea is called “The Never-Never Bag”. First things first, find a bag that you want to designate to collect the toys. Then sit down with everyone to discuss this “new process” and explain to the kids that from this point on, you will give them a 15 minute warning to give them a chance to go pick up all their toys on the ground. After the 15 minutes is over, any toys left laying out will go into the Never-Never Bag.
The first time I did this, my kids did not take me seriously. So after the 15 minutes was up, they said they were done. I still saw plenty of toys laying around and gave them a second chance and asked “are you sure?”. They said yes. So I walked to the yellow ball that my daughter had just bought that day with her own money and threw it into the bag.
Her eyes got wide and she yelled out in disbelief while the tears started falling down her cheeks, “No, not my ball! I don’t like this new rule!”.
Needless to say, the next day when I gave them the 15 minute Never Never Bag warning, they very quickly made sure all their toys were picked up. No more nagging, yelling or reminding them to pick up their toys every 5 minutes.
Now some may call this cruel but I say it just works. I will add in though that each day where no new toys are added to the bag, they are allowed to pick out one toy from the bag to take back. Any toys that stay in the bag for a long period of time, we donate them.
Use this idea and mold it to make it work for your kids but definitely give it a try.
Laundry Time
Flip and Fold
If you have not yet invested in the “Flip & Fold”, I highly recommend it. This is how I got my kids to start folding and putting away their own clothes. There are plenty of different ones now and any of them will work the same. I’ve seen them sold in home and organization retail stores like The Container Store.
My kids started this when they were 5 years old. I just showed them how to lay their clothes down and they just flipped and flopped the flaps and voila, they have a neatly folded shirt. They each had a designated drawer for each type of clothing so when they had their stack of folded clothes, they would know exactly where to put it.
Now I won’t say it’s perfect every time but I’ll take it being done over perfection any day. Plus, they are learning plenty of life skills all with this one activity. Things like responsibility, ownership of doing their own laundry, organization, and being able to focus.
Not only did it help with them getting their clothes folded, they actually had fun using it so it was a win win situation.
Dinner
If you’re like my family where we both work and kids have after school activities, there are some nights where it’s very difficult to even have time to eat, let alone cook a meal.
So before the week starts, we usually know what it will look like. So we plan out what to eat on which days and we make sure the meals we cook will have plenty of food to be used as leftovers for the next day.
I know some of you may not enjoy eating the same thing more than once but I’m telling you, it’s a time saver. Instead of cooking something new every single day, you only have to cook 2-3 days a week.
From time to time, we’ll also have what my friend calls, “DIY dinner nights”. You eat whatever is available in the fridge or pantry. It’s mom’s (or dad’s) night off from cooking. Yayy!
Many use the Crock Pot for dinner nights like this because you can just throw the ingredients into the pot and by dinner time, you have a nice hot meal ready to serve and eat. There are fancy ones out there now. Even ones where you can control the settings from your phone!
What are some ways you and your family keep your household in order and get things done more efficiently? Share each other’s tips and tricks so that we all can get through our day that much easier.
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Struggle with staying on top of your bills and budgeting?
Do you stress out and dread when the 1st of the month rolls around?
Tired of living paycheck to paycheck?
Have constant arguments with your spouse around the family finances?
Have no clue on how to even get in control of your financial life?
Download this FREE Monthly Budgeting Action Plan, which includes Worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly on what you need to do to set up your own family budgeting plan that works for you and your family.
Struggle with staying on top of your bills and budgeting?
Do you stress out and dread when the 1st of the month rolls around?
Tired of living paycheck to paycheck?
Have constant arguments with your spouse around the family finances?
Have no clue on how to even get in control of your financial life?
Download this FREE Monthly Budgeting Action Plan, which includes Worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly on what you need to do to set up your own family budgeting plan that works for you and your family.
Do you struggle with getting your kids to clean up their room?
Are you ready for your kids to be more responsible?
Would you like your kids to be able to manage their time better?
Ready for a simple way to teach your kids good money management habits?
Download this FREE Family Chore and Money System Action Guide. It includes worksheets with step by step instructions on guiding you exactly what you need to do to set up your own chore, schedule and money management plans.
