A guide to weekday mornings, by a three year old

Dear parents,

As my mother is so terribly awful at the school run I thought I’d share my own tips on how to make this a less stressful part of the day for everyone concerned. So often I hear you mums and dads sharing consolation stories about how awful their weekday mornings are which is, let’s be honest, all your own fault.

With that in mind I’ve created this handy How To guide, written from the perspective of wisdom that three years on this planet has brought me. I, and my fellow short friends advise you to take note of this if you’re serious about wanting “tantrum free mornings” and “a quiet life”, as you so often claim to be.

Let’s crack straight on shall we? 

Brushing teeth

Now I know all people over the height of five foot seem to be terribly keen on teeth. In fact, I’d say your interest in brushing teeth is bordering on the obsessive. I mean do we really need to brush our teeth TWICE every day? Really? Seems a tad excessive if you ask me. Instead, on behalf of all children aged three and under I’d like to suggest an alternative option: we skip this step altogether.

Putting on shoes

Neither I, nor my fellow three year old comrades enjoy being told what shoes we can wear. So we want to wear sandals in the snow – who are you to stop us? Wellies are PERFECTLY acceptable for the school run and go even better with a swimsuit and nothing else. To be honest, we’re all getting a bit sick of the narrow-minded attitude of adults trying to dictate what is and isn’t appropriate footwear. Bunch of fascists.

Putting on coats

See above

Leaving the house

Every day I hear parents moaning to each other on the school run how “leaving the house” takes so long. You all make such a big song and dance out of it, anyone would think we make life difficult for you.

If you’d just stop for a second and take into consideration the fact we NEED to check we have that special piece of Lego in our pocket before we go, and we NEED to get our favourite dolly to carry on the way, and we NEED to “help” you put the key in and lock the front door, then everything would be so much more straight-forward. It’s not like we haven’t warned you a thousand times before on every other week-day morning. To be frank it’s getting a bit boring that you forget all the time.

Walking

Now let me tell you a thing about walking. It’s dull. Tediously, mind-numbingly dull. So we do what every self-respecting person does and try to find little things to spice things up a bit. Pretending to throw ourselves in front of cars as we walk up the road? Totally funny! Stopping to inspect every stone en-route? Educational! Walking backwards, sideways and any way that isn’t your bog-standard walk technique? INNOVATIVE!

Please keep all this in mind next time you wail that we are being “difficult” or “challenging”. There is nothing difficult or challenging about any of the above. It’s all very simple actually. There’s really no excuse for getting it wrong.

Yours,

Effie May, on behalf of three year olds across the planet.

(FYI – mermaid outfits are a totally acceptable outfit for the school run.)