What's The Secret???

How do working parents have time to do anything?

Work from 8 am until 2-4 pm [depending on the work load...]. Super fantastic commute of about 45 minutes...can take over an hour if traffic is particularly heinous.

Once I get home, I've got to figure out what to do for dinner and get the kiddo going on his homework. If I get to leave work around 2 pm, then there's usually some time for me to get some stuff done around the apartment or for me to take a quick shower...but this is really more the exception than the norm.

Around 5pm, I start cooking dinner [if I haven't already started]...and I try and have it finished by 5:45 - 6 pm.

From 6 pm until about 7 pm, I'm either cleaning, running errands, or attempting to entertain the kiddo. If I'm lucky...the boyfriend and I will get to play some sort of child-friendly video game for a little bit....usually some game that the kiddo likes to play or watch...

7 pm to 8 pm is time for the kiddo's shower/bath, getting things together for the next school day, and getting ready for bedtime.

Around 8 pm is the kiddo's bedtime...after reading him a story and all that good stuff, it's pretty much 8:30 pm.

8:30.

Most weekday mornings, I get up somewhere between 5 - 6 am...so I'm dragging butt if I don't get to sleep before 11:30 pm.

Maybe I'm just not making the most of the time between the kiddo's bedtime and my own...but it sure doesn't feel like enough time to get anything accomplished!

Sooooo, there's the basic timeline of my weekday....

Any suggestions on how I should tweak it? Or is the real secret that working parents don't ever acutally do anything fun and they just pretend to?? /ponders