Back to School: A Day in My Life When School Starts Again

There’s a very specific kind of morning that only exists when school is back. The alarm goes off, I open my eyes and for approximately three seconds everything is peaceful.

And then I remember. School. 😄

Suddenly, there’s breakfast to make, a child to wake up, a school bag to check, something we definitely forgot to prepare the night before, and a clock that somehow seems to move twice as fast as usual.

I have an eight-year-old son, so back-to-school season doesn’t only mean a new routine for him. It means a new routine for me, too. And every year, no matter how much I tell myself “This time I’m going to be so organized,” those first school mornings have their own plans. 😂

My first stop is usually the kitchen. Before anything else, I want to make sure he has something for breakfast before leaving for school.

And school-morning breakfast has its own set of rules in our house. It needs to be something he’ll actually eat, it needs to keep him going through the morning, and most importantly, it needs to be ready without turning the kitchen into a full cooking show at 7 a.m. 😄

Some mornings are simple: eggs, cheese, bread, fruit or something quick that I know he likes. Other mornings I have a little more time and can prepare something warm. But I’ve learned not to make weekday breakfasts unnecessarily complicated.

Because there’s still getting dressed, finding the thing that was “right here five minutes ago,” checking the school bag one last time, and somehow convincing an eight-year-old that yes, we really do need to leave the house now. 😂

After the morning rush, the strangest part happens. I come home, and suddenly the house is quiet.

If you have a school-age child, you probably know exactly what I mean. One minute you’re looking at the clock every thirty seconds, trying to get everyone out the door on time. The next minute, there’s a cup of coffee in front of you and the house feels completely different. ☕️

This is usually when my own workday really begins. There are recipes to plan, videos to edit, content to prepare, photos to organize and, of course, a kitchen that somehow needs cleaning again even though the day has barely started.

Working with food means my kitchen is also part of my workspace, so there’s usually something happening there throughout the day. Some days I’m testing a recipe. Some days I’m filming. And some days I’m staring at the refrigerator trying to decide what I’m going to make for dinner before school is over.

That last one happens more often than I’d like to admit. 😄

And just like that, the quiet part of the day is over. He’s home. The school bag lands somewhere, shoes come off, and one of the first questions is usually about food.

There’s something about coming home from school that makes kids suddenly realize they haven’t eaten in approximately seventeen years. 😂

So I like having an easy snack ready or something I can put together quickly. Fruit, yogurt, a little sandwich, something homemade if I have it — just enough to deal with that after-school hunger without completely ruining dinner.

And while he tells me pieces of his day — sometimes in great detail and sometimes with nothing more than “It was good” — I start moving toward the evening routine.

This is probably the busiest part of our school days. There’s homework, there are things to put away, and there’s dinner to finish. There’s usually something that needs to be signed, found, washed or remembered for tomorrow. And, somehow, all of these things seem to happen at exactly the same time. 😄

This is why I love dinners that don’t need constant attention. Something I can put in the oven while we’re doing something else, a simple pasta, chicken with vegetables, a quick soup with something on the side, or one of those meals made from whatever I happened to find in the refrigerator that afternoon.

I love cooking, obviously. But I also think there’s an important difference between cooking because you feel inspired and cooking at the end of a long weekday when someone is asking, “Is dinner ready yet?”

On those nights, easy wins. Every time.

No matter how busy the day has been, I really like the moment when dinner finally reaches the table. The bags can wait. The kitchen might still be messy. Tomorrow morning’s list is already forming somewhere in my head. But for a little while, we sit down and eat.

Sometimes we talk about school. Sometimes he tells us something funny that happened during the day. Sometimes the conversation has absolutely nothing to do with school. And sometimes everyone is just hungry. 😄

It doesn’t have to look perfect. Actually, most real family dinners don’t. But I think that’s what I like about them.

It’s just the part of the day when everyone comes back together.

After dinner, the day slowly starts winding down. Or at least, that’s the idea. 😂

There’s the school bag to think about again, clothes for tomorrow, bedtime and all the little things that somehow make mornings easier when we remember to do them the night before. I try to prepare as much as I can.

Do I always manage it? Absolutely not. There will definitely still be mornings when we’re looking for something two minutes before we need to leave. I’ve accepted this. 😄

But that’s also part of the back-to-school rhythm. The first few days feel a little chaotic, and then slowly everyone finds their routine again. The mornings become easier. The school bag finds its usual place. Dinner planning starts happening without so much thought.

And suddenly this routine that felt completely new a few weeks ago becomes our normal life again.