Getting out of the house in the morning is no easy feat. Especially when you have little kids who have to get to daycare/preschool, and you have to battle a daunting traffic-filled commute to get to work after you drop them off. I’ve read lots of articles about how to beat the morning rush by preparing the night before, becoming a morning person, and the list goes on.
While I have found some successful ways to improve our mornings (for example, getting my 4-year old up earlier so she has time to fully wake up), I’m convinced that people who wrote those articles don’t actually have experience with children or how emotional these little beings are in the morning! I have picked my kids’ outfits out the night before and guess what? They change their minds by the morning {just like I do}, so it doesn’t end up saving time!
If you and your kids struggle in the morning, I want to provide you some help {in the form of comic relief}, here are my 9 {not so} easy steps to get out of the house during the morning rush:
1. The night before, set your alarm for a ridiculously early hour. The darker it is outside when it goes off, the better. Wash everyone’s lunch containers so they will be ready to start filling in the morning. Pick out your outfit for the next day, so you will have one less thing to do in the morning.
2. Jump out of bed when your alarm goes off, brush your teeth, and perform any other tasks {workout, shower} to get yourself ready for the day. This must be done in the fastest manner possible and must be done as quiet as possible. This step is a race against the clock to see if you can finish getting ready before your kids wake up. We all know that if you aren’t dressed and ready by the time your kids wake up, it’s game over.
3. As the final step to getting yourself ready, quickly slip into the outfit that you set out the night before. Realize immediately that this outfit is unacceptable because you clearly weighed 10 pounds less last night when you picked it out. Go through approximately 109 other outfits before you finally select a winner. This step will accumulate a pile that you will need to put away later, but ignore it.
4. Enter your kitchen and start preparing breakfasts and lunches. Ponder for a few minutes about whether you should include the carrot sticks in the lunchboxes because they look like you’re making an effort to have your kids eat their veggies, yet know that they won’t actually be eaten. Remark to yourself that it seems wasteful to include, but irresponsible to not include. Decide to include them and think to yourself that maybe today will be the day that they eat them.
5. Wake your kids up. If they are old enough to dress themselves, thank goodness. You will probably only have to ask them 157 times for them to pick out their clothes and get dressed, only to find out that their clothes don’t match. If they aren’t old enough to dress themselves, then get them dressed as quickly as you can wrangle a hyper puppy into a onesie. During this step, remind your kids that you are running late. They won’t care and it might actually make them move slower, but it might make you feel better to say it over and over.
6. Once everyone is dressed, start gathering backpacks, lunches, lovies, etc. At this point, one or more of your kids may start protesting about a breakfast or lunch item {potentially the above-mentioned carrots}. Pick your poison, either listen to them whine or give in for your sanity and replace the item with an acceptable substitute. Decide to replace the item and question who is really in control.
7. Ask your kids to put their shoes on. This may have to be repeated 65 times. Make a mental note to think about investing in a recorder, so you can just press the “play” button instead of repeating yourself so many times every morning. Mutter to yourself that you’re going to be late.
8. Open the door and shuffle everyone out to the car. Perform the super-fast task of buckling everyone in their car seats. I’m sure your kids all love their car seats, so it’s highly unlikely that they will try to wiggle out while you’re trying to buckle them in. At this point, you may think you’re home free, but, be prepared that somebody may or may not have a mental breakdown because their doll was left in the house and baby will be so lonely by herself all day. Run back in and get said items, panicked the entire time that somebody will call the police on you because you left your kids in the car alone for 30 seconds.
9. When getting into the driver’s seat, realize that you actually forgot to put your own shoes on. Go inside, put your shoes on, get back in the car, and you’re officially out the door and on your way to start the day. Easy peasy, right?!
Disclaimer: We also have great mornings. Mornings where my kids hold hands walking into school and mornings where there are lots of hugs and kisses. But some mornings…they really test you! You have to laugh about it, or else you will go crazy!
