I don’t do mornings.
I never have enjoyed them.
Sure a beautiful sunrise on the beach, in the mountains, or even once in our yard was nice but in general I don’t do mornings. Growing up my mom greeted each day as an adventure, if I was able to sleep in until 9 on a Saturday, she declared the day half over, sure she’d been up since 6 awake and ready to conquer the day and when you go full force from 6am then I guess 9am does feel like a good portion of the day is gone. She told me once I had kids I’d think that way too, and while she was right about a lot of things she is still wrong about this.
BUT
I have kids, I have responsibilities, I do mornings now. Or more truthfully I fake mornings.
How do we do mornings??? Ugh they are not pretty in our house, I have a few morning kids who have learned to be quiet and not purposely bother the others. But in a family this large with personalities this strong mornings, afternoons and nights appeal each of us differently.
School mornings start out at 6:45, I wake each child with song, and each room has a different morning song, I start with C he moans, covers his head and begs at me to stop. I keep singing until his light is on and he is sitting up and looking at me with both eyes open. {He used to be my biggest morning fan, he’d bounce out of bed ready to talk, sing, play, read anything and everything, so thankful that it changed when he became a teen, I have let him sleep until 11 on more than one Saturday, jealous of the sleep he is getting} After he is sitting upright I move on to the boy’s room, I sing them the Good morning George song from Veggie Tales, changing the words to fit our family since we do love chocolate but do not work in a chocolate factory. I sing only the first verse before both of them are awake and sitting up in bed. After I greet both of them I walk past C’s room and either tell him good morning or start to sing his song again. When I have sufficiently annoyed him into getting out of bed I head upstairs to the girls room. I start talking to them as I walk up the stairs when I reach the top I start singing, O almost instantly opens her eyes, but she is a light sleeper, and E is always in some sort of acrobatic position on her bed, this morning she was egg~shaped. She is more difficult to wake up and I have had to sing her the song more than one time through to get her moving. Every morning she tells me she is too sick for school and every morning I tell her of course you are sick it is morning. She usually follows me down stairs with her clothes and climbs in my bed while I start to get ready.
C was a morning person and honestly once he gets moving he is ready to go and wide awake, but nights are when he is alive.
O is not a morning person, she never has been, nights always were her favorite. Once up she fakes her way through the morning.
R is not a morning person, afternoon, evening he is at his best. He will stand for minutes staring if we don’t prompt him to move.
J is a morning person, he is up early and ready to go, evenings and nights are not his thing he is tired and needs to go to bed.
E is an afternoon person, she loves to play hard during the day but evening brings grumpy tired tears.
A is a morning person she starts talking as soon as she opens her eyes. She sleeps long during the day, she loves nights too.
Around 7:15 I begin my time to leave count down. I make E a cup of hot chocolate, every~single~day. The rest of the kids get their own breakfast, some have cereal, some have a smoothie {our favorite is 1 carton of frozen PURE yogurt strawberry, a handful of frozen strawberries, half a banana, and chocolate milk to fill in the gaps, blend in my Magic Bullet and we are good to go} and some only drink a glass of chocolate milk. We are not big breakfast at breakfast time people. I also throw their pre~assembled lunches together during this time.
Starting at 7:25 O starts the 1 minute warnings. The big scramble begins, and daily we leave with someone carrying shoes along with lunch boxes, backpacks, practice clothes, pe clothes and the stray project. Our goal is to start getting in the van at 7:30 pulling out at 7:35 for our 2 minute ride to school. My middle/high schoolers have to be there for class at 7:50 but since they do not like to move and rush we need to give ourselves plenty of time to get to their classes on the 2nd and 3rd floors of their buildings. J and E do not have to be there as early so I take those few minutes sitting in the parking lot to brush hair or tie shoes. After J runs out to join his friends on the playground I dress the baby, and then do hair, bows and shoes in or standing next to the van in the parking lot. We walk E to her class common area and wait for teacher to come claim her class. She is easily stressed so we wait outside her playground until they line up. This makes an easier start to her day and lessens her stress.
At 8:05 the day is ours! we try to get our errands run before the need for nap sinks in, I get my energy bursts in the afternoon so until then I just plug along. Oh for the record Keith is a night person, he will easily stay up until 1am and then sleeps in when ever he gets a chance, because I cannot sleep in {the morning people need me} I have to go to bed at a decent time.
What I left out was the grumpy, crying, mean words that come out of our mouths some morning, the lost shoes, the forgotten signed note, the socks that don’t feel right, the milk spilled, the cereal left out. We try to make mornings easy 3 of the kids plan their clothing for the week on Sunday night, laying out clothes, socks and undies, having lunches prepped and homework in backpacks helps but when you throw different children into that morning mix, things go wrong.
Leaving early for school gives us time to run back into the house, and search of the forgotten item. I want to send my kids off to school with a sound mind, so I try not to pick morning car ride as the time to correct some big deal, I will correct a tone or word but I save true correction for another time.
Honestly about once a week it is a rough morning but mostly the kids stick to routine and things go as smoothly as possible.
I always tell each child I Love You as they get out of the van, while they are reminding me of their afternoon activities.
That is how we do mornings…
we start our day with a song
go hug your kids they need your love
jen
While J has played church league we realize that cheering him on in sporting events will be our way to celebrate him. E has participated in our rec centers ballet classes for years, by watching her we celebrate her. We have no idea how we will celebrate A but we know that what ever she chooses we will celebrate.
We played a little game after dinner.
overholt8 