The Perfect Schedule

The Perfect Schedule

I went into this month after an August full of me telling myself that “starting in September, we’ll be on a schedule, and everything will be wonderful.” I spent much of our vacation in the beginning of August figuring out the World’s Most Ideal Schedule that would allow me to the World’s Most Perfect Mother, Riding Instructor, Farm Owner, Horse Trainer and Wife. I knew, even in August, that putting that much pressure on a schedule was foolhardy and would likely end, and probably even begin, in defeat, but it became my mantra: “I just have to get through August, then in September, the rest of my life begins.”

In many ways, our lives were to change dramatically this month. We would have both our children in school 2.5 days a week, and our eldest, Kate, in school 4.5 days a week. I would have my farm to myself for a few days for the first time since she was born in January 2015. I made a schedule that included me working late enough one day a week so that Jeff was doing the nightly routine without me, in order to take two full days off from work. I flipped my teaching hours around a bit so that when Jeff was on nights, I’d stop teaching at 6:15 and do a calm dinner and bedtime without throwing a hotdog at each child and continuing to teach until their former 8:45 bedtime. When Jeff is home, according to the new schedule, I stop teaching and do a 6:15-7:45 bedtime routine, then teach for another hour. Looking at this schedule in August, I was pretty sure I’d come up with it: The Perfect Schedule.

For the first two weeks in September, the kids weren’t in school but we initiated the schedule so that it would be less shocking when their school year began. Their bedtime moved from 8:45 to 7:30, then 7:20. Our five year old had just started taking the briefest of ‘power naps’ in the afternoon, but our three year old was still sleeping soundly for a couple hours of nap time every day. I tried to get used to having two open days on my schedule a week without cramming them full of the people clamoring for lessons, equine vet appointments, or seeing the open day as a reason to book the farrier because I could hold for him uninterrupted.

An eye-opening moment

The first week of school rolled around and it was eye-opening. While they were apparently thriving in their wonderfully outdoorsy Waldorf school, at home they were exhausted and quick to rage. We didn’t get them down to nap Monday or Tuesday. Kate was eager to notice any and all injustices in her world at home and on the farm, while Arlo was quick to spew “I hate yous” and throw food that didn’t meet his exacting expectations. Kate began using baby talk around the clients while Arlo wanted to be held and chat loudly at me through my last few lessons each day. (Bless you, clients, for tolerating us at our worst.)

I wanted the schedule to create less chaos and less rushing, which was foolish. Now we have times we have to be places, and newly self-created deadlines of NOW WE EAT DINNER, and NOW WE HAVE BEDTIME. I was right about one thing, this is the beginning of a new normal routine with children in school. Farm life, school life, work life, and life in general all have deadlines and pressure. There were sunshiney moments: Jeff and I were able to go have a lunch date in the middle of the day on Tuesday. We both worked and got things done, although I did about 1/4 of the riding I meant to do, because other things invariably cropped up: One boarder needed help drugging and leading her homicidal mare who’d been on stall rest for over a month. Another boarder, needed help wrangling her horse's pasturemate, so I had to dismount a training horse I’d just gotten on, sort out the bringing in of the mare, which left me fifteen minutes to ride the horse, so I put him away, taught a lesson, and rode him later when I was supposed to ride my mare.

A sunshiney moment during a tough week

Kate and Arlo had sunshiney moments, too: Kate has a new best friend she talks about incessantly and is settling into her similarly-aged peer group with one rave review letter home from her teacher. Arlo leapt into the truck after his second day, presenting a small loaf of bread, and was prouder than I’ve ever seen him, telling us every aspect of the bread’s creation and sharing it with all of us, taking in our reactions. When they weren’t together, they thought of each other. Arlo insisted on Kate getting anything that he enjoyed on his days off from school, and Kate bringing him fruit salad her class had made to share. We feel affirmed in our decision to make the sacrifices necessary to send them to a Waldorf school: They were outside almost all day, every day, and while Kate maintains that “we don’t, like, learn anything,” we’ve seen the products from the school go on to thrive in high school and college. The school is the right choice. Our children probably aren’t future serial killers. My horses will get ridden as this all settles into a routine. The schedule is…evolving? A lost cause? A failure? The bane of my existence? Necessary to my existence?

You all knew when you began reading this post that there is no perfect schedule, and maybe even less so in our industry than most: Something is often and unexpectedly bleeding, limping, ill-behaved, or some part of some structure around the farm is suddenly not latching, poking out dangerously, leaking, or not starting. If I won a billion dollars, I wouldn’t give up the boarders and clients who create our village. There would be upgrades in footing and structures and I’d certainly buy a couple more horses to compete, but, overall, this would still be our life. This would still be our evolving schedule. There would still be mom-guilt and hotdogs and the spreading-too-thin of all available resources. I suppose the trick is going to be to have the schedule in place, but go with the flow of horses' and humans' imperfections interrupting The Perfect Schedule, and relying on the sunshiney moments to see us through this new phase of life.