Welcome And New Year Focus

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Hello and welcome to Unapologetically Mob, the podcast from moms of all stages. I'm Dr. Tanya here with my co-host Dr. Jenny, who will be sharing tips, tricks, and unfiltered stories that will inspire, normalize, and educate moms during every stage of motherhood. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Unapologetically Mom. And welcome to the new year. Holy cow, it's already 2026. And we are ready to kick off the year with some exciting new content and some other exciting things uh in store

Reflecting On Last Year’s Wins

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for you. But this episode, we really want to focus on planning since January becomes a really big kind of planning year, setting your year up for success. And then also coming off of one of our last episodes of, you know, what were you grateful for? What went well, what maybe could have gone better, and taking some of those themes into this year and saying, let's get started off on the right foot, let's kind of get it all down on paper or in your notebook or your iPad and get the year moving forward in the right direction. Yeah.

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Yeah.

Paper Planners And Quarterly Lookahead

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I think I'm a paper planner still person. So like I have my paper calendar out. It has like the monthly page and then also it has like the four of the weekly pages that follow. And so I always make notes at the end of the month as to like, well, this worked really well this month or this activity or this skill or whatever our family like made the transition with food prep or with snacks and how those are going and whatnot. And being able to be like mindful of of that and then moving that into the next year and looking forward for 2026. Um planning, I feel like I'm a pretty I like to plan, I like to organize, I like those things. Um, and having two kids now that are in like activities, that's a really big thing that fills our calendar or our our days or our evenings. And so I try to be mindful of like maybe like a quarter in advance, like what are activities coming up, um, checking out their like pages or whether websites or social media or whatever, and like when is registration for say swimming lessons comes up

Tracking Registrations For Kid Activities

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usually in March. Um, the girls want to do swimming this spring. So like looking at that, and then looking at like we have basketball, we're just basketball probably in like, I don't know, September of last year, October maybe, and it doesn't start until January, but just kind of being mindful of those activities that aren't year-round or aren't every nine months, um, and being kind of mindful of putting that in your in your phone as to like our calendar as to when registration would be for those activities.

Non‑Negotiables And Weekly Mapping

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And then looking at like monthly or weekly or however your brain works, but like coming up with a plan um for your activities, for your things that are non-negotiable for you, whether it's these are when I like to work out and if you have to sign up for workouts in advance, if you're again traveling for activities, if you're whatever, so on and so forth, I think it's less stressful, I think, in my opinion, if I at least know what to expect or can like maybe pre-plan a little bit of that stuff before like jumping into the week and then being like, oh my gosh, like I totally forgot we had like, and does that happen sometimes? Yes, but I try really hard to make be mindful of like what's coming up for or that week or that month. Those are those are really good things to even just start out with is like let's just write it all down so we know what's there.

Night‑Before Prep To Calm Mornings

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And I'm not as much of a planner as as Jenny is me. I'm way more fly by the seat of my parents, and um, my husband hates it and he's listening, so I know he hates it. I'm sorry, I'm working on it. Um, but there are some things that him and I have talked about that are actually really helpful that I even as much as a fly by the seat of my parents as I am, there's a lot of things that are really helpful for us, like night before versus morning of to take a lot of that morning stress off of getting ready. It's already stressful in the morning the way that it is. I know, like someone got up late and then it was breakfast was late and this was late, and then now we're behind, and now we're gonna get into school in time and we're missing the bell and you know, whatever it is. But one of the things that really helps us is I like to look on Sundays and get all of the stuff ready for the week, like because Monday morning we're gonna go and then it's all gonna be at school for the week. So whether it's blankets for daycare or water bottles for school, hat, gloves, mittens this time of the year, like making sure it's all washed and ready to go and set in their bag by the door, by their backpack, so that all we have to do is literally put our coats on and walk out the door.

Uniform Baskets And Faster Get‑Ready

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I also started putting baskets in the laundry room of folded uniforms because my kids go to Capstone, so we have folded uniforms and they can just go get them themselves. They don't have to go all the way back upstairs to get their to get their clothes. Like they just go into the laundry room, they know where they are, they can grab their clothes, they can grab whatever shirt they want, whatever pants they want, and then their socks are right there. So that cuts down on a lot of time. Like they're done with breakfast, they go wash their hands and face, they brush their teeth, and then they grab their clothes. Well, now I don't have to hound them. Did you find your clothes? Like, where are my clothes? I can't find them. Like, there's no more of that because they're in the basket and they're there. Um, and that takes a little bit of planning on my part because I have to make sure that there's clothes there for Monday morning. But for the most part, that has cut down on the chaos of our mornings. Yeah. And so we don't do uniforms, but on Sundays after I do laundry, we have one of those like five-tier things hanging up in

Outfit Bins And Gear By Day

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our closet. And so I'll go in and put all of their outfits in for the week, along with like if they have a Leo for gymnastics or dance, if they have a swimming suit or whatever, or their basketball jersey, it's all in that bin for that day. So then at least we're not again running around like crazy people in the morning. Mom, I don't have the socks I like, or I don't have where is this not my jersey? It's not clean or whatever. We have all of it ready to

Fixed Hockey Schedule As Anchor

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go. Yep. Yeah. And I also like to look so all my kids are in hockey and our schedule doesn't change. We have hockey nice. Yeah. We have all through the season, all four months. Hockey is Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday. Like we know exactly when it is, and and all of the same time, like, you know, with with the exception of tournaments or games. But knowing that, I can kind of put hockey out of my head and say, what else do we have? Do we have something at school? Do we have like a personal thing or an event or a doctor's appointment or whatever? And put that into our schedule so that I remember. So it's not the day before going, oh no, we have a dentist appointment tomorrow morning because I totally forgot.

Calendar Hygiene To Avoid Surprises

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Getting all of that in my calendar and kind of paging through the days to see what's coming up this week really just takes the the surprise out of, oh, by the way, I forgot. And then I have to change my work schedule or I have to ask someone to pick the kids up, or you know, because those things come up quick. Like you were scheduled it a year ago, yeah, and you forgot that you scheduled it for next January or whatever it was. Um, and taking the surprise out of the next day really helps cut down on the chaos and the anxiety of, oh my gosh, did I forget something? Am I gonna

Winter Gear Systems And Snack Stashes

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miss something? Yeah. There's so right now, especially with it being winter, the girls have their like, we call them their snow bags, but where they have to have their boots and their snow pants and their special hats, and then they have face masks, and they have face masks, and they have special gloves that they wear out to recess and whatever. And so I've been trying to like before I go to bed, I'm putting all of that back in their bag because my girls are not the best. It's like I don't even know. It's like they come off and walk in the house and it's everywhere. I'm like, how did your hat end up on the counter? Like, what what how is it a logical place? But anyway, so that was last night. I was like, I don't understand. Can you just please put it back in your bag? Like then I'm running around looking for all of your stinking stuff. And who would have thought finding two gloves or four gloves and two hats would be such a pain in the butt? But anyways, I've been doing that on Sunday or before I go to bed at night just so that that at least is done. And then I've also been trying to get their snack in their backpack. So I feel like that's the other thing that I would love for them to take responsibility for, but I also feel bad if they would forget and then they would be hungry. So you know, they have a special sta snip snack stash in their backpacks in the event that they forget one, but it still makes me feel better that I did that I did it. We actually found some uh frozen smoothie popsicle type things at Costco that the kids have been really enjoying, and so we obviously pull those out in the morning so that they're fed by by snack. Um, but on Mondays, I require that my kids bring enough snacks for the week. And they have like a little cubby at school that they keep them in. And inevitably they eat more than one snack a day, so then we have to replenish, but at least

Weekly Snack Planning And Protein

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then we're kind of doing it one time. We do it Sunday night. I say, go pick out your favorite snacks. I'm gonna add a couple meat sticks and some extra protein for you, and then you can pick out whatever else you want. I like that idea. But just so that, you know, in case we do forget, like you said, then we're not going hungry because mom forgot my snack. Yeah, mom forgot it. Yeah, uh, and gosh only knows that maybe school lunch isn't the best. Or maybe we're not having enough time to eat it all, or you know, whatever. All of the things, yeah, everything, yeah. And so I think the overall like point of this is just trying to be mindful. And you can pick. Like I go through at the beginning of each month or like the end the last week of the of the month, looking ahead to the next month, and my paper calendar and like putting in my phone calendar, like whatever things I need to be kind of aware of that are coming up. Um, and then I do

Monthly, Weekly, Daily Planning Rhythm

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weekly looking at going forward for the next. And I think even like the morning of personally being able to be like, here are the things that I'm doing for myself. Like whether it's you're getting your workout in, whether it's okay, I know I have a lunch meeting, so I just need to be really mindful of like increasing my protein for my my breakfast meal. Um, because I know lunch might not be stellar, or gosh, we're having this for supper. I really need to take this out of the fridge or the freezer or have that ready to go. Um, so that then in the evening you're not like, and I've done it before too, where it's like, gosh, I really wish I remembered to have done this this morning, or can I make part of dinner now and put it in the fridge so that it's easier after sports or after getting home late from whatever it might be, that you're not running around um and stressing yourself out too to help you help yourself for the for the I guess evening routine and bedtime routine and then preparing for the next day, which I mean sometimes I feel like and

Dinner Prep And Evening Routines

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I I feel I'm sure other people feel this way, but it kind of gets monotonous. And like I don't love it all of the time, and it's kind of like I feel like I get a little bit burned out from the monotony of like it's just constant, right? Monday through Friday is basically the exact same thing, and maybe we switch out activities during the week, but it's the same routine every single evening and the same hiccups and the same arguments about bedtime and brushing teeth and whatever, and it's just like, oh my gosh, like sometimes I just don't love it. And it's like I think that I don't know, I would love an evening of just like this was really easy, and everybody went to bed well, and now I can sit on the couch and read my book, but it doesn't happen almost ever. So if you're one of those moms, also no, you're not alone. It is it's a lot. That was the conversation that we had last night. Was my kids were we we let them watch like 25 minutes last night of TV, and not that that's the typical, but it was like dishes getting ready, like just with

Monotony, Burnout, And Real Talk

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the busy season coming up and just all of the things that we have going on. And they kept saying, just one more episode, just one more episode. Well, they're like really short episodes, and it was already time. I was like, Nope, we've already we have done this, we are going to bed. And I told Harrison, I said, Harrison, don't look at me like that. And my husband chimes in and goes, Yeah, Harrison, don't look at your mom. And I said, No, he gave me the sad puppy dog eyes of do I have to go to bed right now? It's not late enough to go to bed. And if we would just go to bed on time, mornings would be so much nicer and so much like so many less tantrums and yelling. And I don't want to get out of bed, I'm too tired. But I think if we can plan and we know what's happening tomorrow morning, even if we do end up getting up a little late or we do have a Krabby kiddo, we can rest ash be rest assured that all of our stuff is ready and it's ready to go, and we don't have to be rushing around trying to find the hats or the mittens or the whatever. Um, well, then decreases your stress for your day because the worst thing is running into work late or a couple of minutes behind, and you haven't gotten to have your coffee or maybe even your breakfast, and you are like the kid's hair is done, but mine looks like a disaster, which is usually what happens to me. Um, and just like being able to maybe have the five-minute

Screen Time Boundaries And Bedtime

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card chime tour convict, okay, I at least I got to have breakfast to have my coffee with me. I look mostly put together, the kids are good, like we're all settled for the day into your routine, and hopefully not feeling like that was a complete cluster and starting your day off on a better note. Um, and just having I mean, everybody, I mean especially Mondays, but having your dayslash week start off on a stressful note, it's not very fun. And we've all we've all been there. And so hopefully, if anything, some of these like small steps you can take to try to get everything prepared either the night before or the morning of or the week before, whatever it might look like, that we're we're in a better place. And we're gonna do a whole

Reduce Morning Stress With Prep

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episode on like meal planning and prepping and all of that, because we all know that is a sticky part when it comes to getting ready in the morning, much less after sports and things. What can we do? We can we do there. So we'll quiz Tanya on all of her sort of stay tuned. Yes, stay tuned for our next episode to talk about meal planning and prepping and making eating healthier a little less stressful because we know that those are the questions we get in our offices.

Closing And Listener Support

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And so thanks again for tuning in. Happy New Year, and we will catch you next week. Thanks so much for spending a little time with us today. If this episode spoke to you, please follow the podcast and leave us a quick review. It helps other moms find our community and feel supported too. And if you have a friend who could use a little encouragement, share this episode with her. Thank you for listening and remember, you are doing an amazing job.