Boogers on the Wall

Here’s the three plates of French toast I tossed yesterday after no one wanted to eat it. 

I detest mornings. I always have. I may always will.

I thought mornings were bad before I was a mom. But mornings with kids are an absolute nightmare. Especially when we have a certain time to be ready for something.

Like school.

No one wants to get dressed. No one wants to make their bed. And no one wants anything for breakfast. Sometimes I take matters into my own hands and whip up some French toast. Only to throw three plate fulls away because no one wanted to eat that early.

I don’t blame them. I don’t really like French oast either. But I was trying to be nice. We’ve got to have something to fuel our bodies!

My kids drag their feet, moping about the house and wasting time. So that leads to me scrambling behind them, urging them to eat faster, brush faster, dress faster. No one moves fast around here before 10 a.m.

Then there’s the last-minute trick. I think that we are all ready. I ask my kids if they have done everything from grabbing their library books to brushing their teeth. They always say yes. And they are always wrong.

It never fails. We are ALWAYS racing for something during the last minute before our carpool shows up – usually it’s shoes, coats or backpacks.

Let me just say that you think you have a clean house until someone can’t find his backpack. And then it’s your fault that they can’t find it. And you’re racking your brain wondering where you might have put it only to call the school and find out he never brought it home the night before.

Sigh.

I dream of the day that I can wake up to my kids already starting on their daily routine. In my fantasy they are dressed in school-approved clothing, their beds are made and they are happily helping each other make me breakfast…in bed… and then I wake up…to one of them screaming that they need me.

For the past 10 years I’ve been woken up just as I have settled into a deep sleep to someone screaming out that they need a drink, or some toast, or help turning on the television.

Maybe that’s why I hate mornings. Three of my little ones like to rise before the sun. They don’t want to do anything productive, their only goal is to get mom out of bed before she is ready. (OK maybe they aren’t actually thinking that but it sure feels like it sometimes.)

It feels like mornings are out to get me. Someday I’ll have my act together. Things will be in place so that when I roll out of bed it’s easier to get out the door.

Until then I can only dream – but only until 7 a.m.