Do You Suffer From Morning Madness?

I got an email from one of the parenting websites I subscribe to last week with the question about “Does your house suffer from morning madness?”

Of course it does, but really doesn’t every house with children? I’m sure it will only get worse when Will gets older and there are three, not two people, fighting for the shower every morning.

For me the key to getting everyone out of the house in the morning is having a regular routine. In our house, it begins when I hear Will calling out “Mama, Mama, I’m up now, it’s get up time.” I am not a morning person, though getting better at it, and stumble to his room to get him up, into a clean diaper, and downstairs for breakfast. He gets gated into the living room/playroom area with PBS while I make him something for breakfast. I know I know it’s not ideal to plop your kid with his breakfast in front of the TV, but honestly it works and I can’t get too upset about a little Sesame Street in the morning. While Will eats, I get my (hallelujah) coffee and check my emails, the newspapers and figure out what work assignments are going to be on the docket for the day.

After breakfast, I take Will down to my grandmother’s apartment downstairs where he has yet another breakfast with Nanny who always seems to think he is starving and has not eaten yet.. (He plays the system well). With the two of them securely secured inside, I head outside to take care of my other children—the two horses. I get them out to their paddock, new water, morning hay and then clean their stalls and set the stalls up for the evening with hay, water, grain.

And then I take about 10 minutes for me. I have found that this is a key part of starting the day with a good attitude. I know it’s not much, but it has improved my attitude immensely. I take a nice walk on the trail behind our house where I try to take a few deep breaths, listen to the birds, listen to the sound of my feet crunching on the leaves, and get into a good frame of mind for the day.

Back inside, while Willie moves on to what must be his third breakfast with my grandmother, I get showered, dressed, and ready to work. It’s hectic, it’s more in less than two hours that I used to do in a day, but there’s something satisfying about being able to pull it off every morning.

So how does my system compare with the tips from that article I got last week?

They recommend coming up with fast breakfast ideas:

 http://www.babycenter.com/0_quick-and-healthy-breakfasts-for-kids_64338.bc

Tricks to speed up kids who dawdle in the morning:

http://www.babycenter.com/404_how-do-i-speed-up-my-dawdler_69189.bc