Mornings - Love 'em or hate 'em? Me, I LOATHE them. I will tell you why. It's the point in the day when you are furthest away from the kids going to bed. Oh that sounds so mean, but it is so true; and if you had MY kids, you would feel the same way.
Case-in-point, THIS morning.
While all of my mornings seem wrought with rushing, whining, chaotic, "make-breakfast-I'm hungry," let's get to school, let me wipe your bum, your diaper is leaking, please hurry and eat, go brush your teeth, he's pulling my hair, I forgot to make my lunch, I forgot my homework, don't forget to let the dog out, the dog pooped on my blanket, where's my coffee, and please hit me with a mallet and put me out of my misery for a few hours kind of chaos.
THIS morning was especially a "what is going on I'm groggy out of my mind and can't remember my kids' names" sort of morning.
Scene one: dark bedroom, deep sleep, 6am-ish. Eldest daughter enters room. I hear a faint, "Mom? Mom? Mom?" I reply, "waaahhh?" Taking advantage of my sleepy state eldest daughter asks, "Can we eat the waaahh wahhh baah baaah maaaah?" (This is how I heard it, she actually asked to eat my favourite German gingerbread cookies, and apparently eating them ALL was also on her agenda.) "Uh huh." I reply. Good. The kids can feed themselves and I can sleep. So be it.
Scene Two: "Mooooooom! I'm DOOOONE!!" I hear after what I imagine was many "Mom I'm done"'s. "Done WHAT?" Ooooh. Done THAT. There is nothing I love MORE than cleaning a dirty bum at 6:30 in the morning. Like taking a cold shower I tell you.
I stumble out of bed, groggy out of my mind (that's what you get for going to bed late last night, grumble, grumble!). On the way to the bathroom to clean middle son's smelly bum, I notice the fridge door open. "What the?" Oh, no. Baby is in the fridge, with the bag of mushrooms open. She is pulling out mushrooms and picking them into little pieces and throwing them in the crisper.
"When did everyone get up??" I mumble.
"MOOOM I'm DOOONE!!" Yeah, yeah, I'm coming. I can barely see. Who's that on the toilet? Oh yeah, middle son, the trouble maker with the dirty bum. As I wipe, I yell out to my big girl "What did I say yes to you eating earlier??"
"Your cookies."
"My WHAT?"
"Your cookies."
"Oh gee WHIZ!"
I'm grumbling about, stumbling around. I can't wake up. I don't know who is who. One of them wants toast, one of them wants waffles. No not toast, but cereal. No not cereal, but bread and butter (I believe my son was an inmate in an earlier life). What? Who wants milk? Not you? What's your name again? Why is there celery on the floor? Leave those damn mushrooms alone! Are there any cookies left? You gave them to the baby? Oh good, at least I know what the brown on her face is!!
EVERYONE SHUT - UP!!
I am making coffee.
Oh thank GOD! I'm not the only one! My son learned at about age 7 how to get what he wanted in the mornings too. Ask me while I'm sleeping. It took me a while (about3monthsthankyouverymuch) to figure it out. I had to literally train myself not to just say "yeah fine, whatever" just to get 15 more minutes of much needed sleep!! I never knew WHAT I was going to find!
ReplyDeleteI HATE morning like that! I'm a BEAR in the AM. I'm in the process of teaching the kids that if THEY want a nice start to the day, they BETTER not say a SINGLE word to me, or raise their tone to each other until the clock says 7am. (I wake up at 6:40am) If I don't have those 20 minutes to shake off the fog, I really am a b*tch. Being 9 and 5 yrs old, It's a "luxury" I feel I've earned!
Here's to quiet mornings, poop free bums and mushrooms safe from torment on your near future!!