I had an argument with my husband this morning. It was about the stupidest thing. But, on deconstruction, I can see how the argument represented so much more than what we were actually arguing about. The crux of the matter is the root of the problem with weekday mornings. Something I tried, spectacularly badly, to explain to him at the time.
Our argument? It was about shelving units. Namely, the pair of shelving units in our hallway that I needed him to bring back upstairs because the bloke off Gumtree failed to turn up to collect them yesterday (stay awake people). But at 7am the NLM failed to see the pressing urgency of why it had to be him to bring the units back upstairs. You’re at home today, he said, why can’t you bring them back upstairs? It’s a two minute job.
And there’s the heart of the issue. Because anyone who has to get children ready in the morning and actually be somewhere before 10am will tell you, nothing is a two minute job.
At the time, I tried to explain – in rising hysteria – that I didn’t have two minutes. That it was a huge feat of accomplishment to even find time for a wee before the school run, let alone carry a pair of shelving units upstairs. He didn’t understand. But all you have to do is get the kids dressed, give them breakfast and then leave the house? How can that be so hard? Says the person who leaves home for work at 7.15am and misses all the weekday morning action.
To those of you who are blessed with not having to get kids ready and out of the house under a looming deadline, let me explain the exact reason why it’s so difficult: children have different priorities to adults.
What my five year old thinks is important in the morning:
- Finding a pair of tights that don’t go over her toes. (No such thing exists.)
- Finding her Anna lego figure that has been lost for approximately ten days.
- Singing her favourite Taylor Swift song.
- Finding the My Little Pony star on Tiny Tots and then logging onto my laptop to mark off said star on the Tiny Tots website.
- Spreading her own toast with a particular knife that happens to be cleaned in the dishwasher at that very moment.
What my 15 month old thinks is important in the morning:
- Breastfeeding.
- Breastfeeding.
- More breastfeeding.
- Climbing on the dining table.
- Practising Free Running off the dining table.
- Emptying three packets of babywipes.
- Breastfeeding.
- Getting stuck behind the TV.
This is the problem with weekday mornings. My kids and I have absolutely nothing in common when it comes to early morning priorities.
While I’m intent on getting them dressed, fed and out of the door, they’re intent on their own personal little battles that are 100% important to them at the time. Try explaining to my 5 year old that 8.30am is not the time to deliberate over what colour she’s going to paint her nails at the weekend, or that it really doesn’t matter Lego Anna was lost in her Frozen set a while ago and we can find it later. She doesn’t want to know. Kids live in the moment, so anything that pops into her head at any given moment is cause for massive concern and must be dealt with there and then. Priorities.
And while I’m trying to field, cajole and encourage my five year old that my priorities are more pressing than her priorities (getting dressed, eating her breakfast, brushing her teeth) I’m also trying to field and cajole a 15 month old who has wildly different ideas of what is important. Which is why many mornings I find myself attempting to think up persuading arguments to forget about My Little Pony until 4pm while simultaneously buttering toast, retrieving a toddler off the dining table and not wetting myself because I haven’t had a chance to do a wee yet today.
Don’t tell me to get up earlier. I was up at 5.30am today. I could be out of bed at 3am – hell, I could even avoid bed altogether – and still the same conflicts would occur. Hair doesn’t want to be brushed, school shoes don’t want to be worn, breakfast doesn’t want to be eaten. It makes no difference how organised I am or how early we start getting ready for school.
And that’s the problem with weekday mornings. It doesn’t matter how patient I am. No matter how many random requests I try to fulfill at just the moment we really need to be walking out of the door, it really makes no difference. Until both my children are teenagers (at least) there is very little chance of us sharing anything in the way of early morning priorities. That’s why weekday mornings suck.
And that’s why I can’t spare two minutes to move a pair of bloody shelving units back upstairs.
You know?
YES! Man logic in full force (is that unfair to generalise… in my case no)
Me and my boyfriend split nursery run duty, I take her on a Monday and pick her up, he does the same on a Tuesday. Although, on a Monday I get up, get her teeth brushed, dressed, nursery bag packed and out the house for 7:30.
On a Tuesday I get up, get her teeth brushed, dressed, nursery bag packed and then he takes her to nursery…
Yep, thats definitely an even split. *eyeroll*
Lol, I Love it! This defo speaks for pretty much every mum – It felt like I was reading my own morning story. Thanks for a great read! x
My DH’s favourite piece of advice to give is: ‘just get everything ready in the evening, go to bed early and give yourself some contingency in the morning’. In fact, he’s been saying that for quite a number of years. I’d rather hear, ‘Is there anything I could help with so that you CAN go to bed early?’ But that does not happen…
About the contingency in the morning – it didn’t matter how early I got up and fed my youngest when she was little – she had a habit of producing a massive, stinky nappy just as we were about to leave to take her sister to school… Hang on there, though, it does get better (when they go to secondary school and start getting detentions for being late LOL!)
My youngest does the nappy thing too! How do they know?!
Totally! You only really get it when you’ve had to do it. Funny though, as it’s so true! xx
Glad it’s not just me!
I am sorry to have to disappoint you but it really doesn’t stop at teenagers either!
My two are 13 and 14 years.
Here’s a typical week day for me.
Get up 7am to take out two dogs before they pee in the house. 7.20 wake up my 14 year old son for his shower. Put the kettle on for a cup of tea I won’t have time to drink!
Get undressed, shower and re dressed.
7.40 wake up 14 year old again for his shower. Now opening shutters and window and pulling back duvet of moaning boy!
Put the kettle on again for cup of tea.
Empty dish washer whist shouting at 14 year old to get in the shower. Finally gets in the shower.
Give dogs their breakfast.
Daughter gets up 8am screams at her brother to use the bathroom for the 10th time and then gives up and goes away to use mine.
8.10 son gets out of shower after draining a full tank of hot water, he leaves bathroom wrapped in a towel. I go into bathroom to mop soaking wet floor, despite moaning on numerous occasions he can’t seen to get out of the shower without soaking the floor! Pick up pyjamas and pants and put them in the washing basket right next to them!
Open window which should be open by him after the shower to let out all the steam and help dry it out.
Come out of bathroom to find son sitting on bed still wrapped in towel looking at his phone. First warning that he will be late for school.
Go down stairs to my bathroom to find daughter putting on makeup that has now stained my sink and top.
Go into my bedroom to make bed.
Back up stairs to find my son now looking for his head phones still in a towel. It’s now 8.20. Daughter arrives up stairs looking like she’s been on holiday some where very, very, hot! To much makeup again. I tell her to tone it down. She tuts and looks at me disapprovingly and mutters something about it looking fine!
Son finally gets dressed and spends 10 minutes looking for hairbrush for his hair that is now practically dry and looking like he’s been turned upside down and used to mop the floor!
Daughter hands me a letter for a school trip that needs to be signed and returned yesterday!!
Look in my drawer for a pen and it’s gone again! One of them has taken it again!
Nearly ready for school and it’s now 8.40 and we need to leave.
Teeth brushed I say? Daughter runs into bathroom to complete this task.
I’m getting in the car I shout. I look at my un touched cup of tea on the table as I leave. Both children come down to the car and it’s 8.45. Two dogs follow behind them. I get out of the car to put the dogs back in the house. Son comes running up behind as I close the door. Forgot my folder he says. Again, I mutter!
We all get in the car and arrive at school exactly 9.56 when they need to be at registration at 9.55.
You’ll get a detention one of these days I say as I wish them a good day.
No we won’t my daughter says, we blame you mum and say you have to clean every where because of your OCD.
I look on speechless as I watch my darling children head in the direction of the school office, thinking one day I’ll miss this!
Oh blimey. And there I was thinking it was going to get easier one day! Argh!
I think this depends on the teenagers. Mine have to get the school bus at 7:30. On one memorable occasion I ended up driving down the road after the bus. I then told the kids that in future if they missed the bus they’d have to get the local buses and they’d be late for school. They, so far, haven’t missed the bus again.
Problems do come when the school bus decides not to stop at the bus stop (why – did the driver not see the 20 school kids stood there???) and we have frantic phone calls along the lines of ‘muuummm the bus drove passed us, what do we do now?’ – usually whilst I’m in the shower…
I officially hate morning times. Since we moved, we have to leave the house 40 minutes earlier but there is not one JOT of urgency or concept of time in my 7 year old. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve got away to get dressed and left her to do the same only to come back 20 minutes later and find that she’s wearing the sum total of one sick but is gleefully naming every single Pokemon who lives in the Kanto region (don’t ask, I don’t know either). Believe it or not, it’s actually worse in mornings when Husband is around. On slow work days he’ll often hitch a ride into town to use the gym and we are ALWAYS late when he comes with us because instead of just needing to find socks for a 7 and 2 year old and wrangle 2 kids, I’m suddenly finding gym socks and water bottles a d making fricking protein shakes too. I get major anxiety about being Kat and it’s really no wonder with my bunch of day dreaming dawdlers in tow.
On the few rare occasions the NLM has been at home to help with the school run (paternity leave, for example) it’s taken even longer, so I can relate!
Reminds me of my mum’s favourite story about taking my brother to his child care (my grandma) every weekday morning when he was two. Half hour journey there and back from our home so already pushed for time. But only way to get him in the car was to feed the horses in a field half way. Cue waiting for horse to saunter up, two year old dropping carrot on floor, seat belts on and off and on…. She must have had some serious patience!
Oh my goodness – your mum sounds like a saint!
or when they say are you ready yet when you are going out, they have had to shower, poo and get dressed then sit whatching sky sports news when all you have had to to is get yours and your childs breakfast sorted and cleaned up after, showered, dried your hair, got dressed, got toddler washed dressed (after a 20min chase around the upstairs to pin them down), got both your shoes and coats sorted plus a chaning bag with everything needed in it ready and in the car. THEN 5 mins down the road they say have we got everything? WELL ITS A BIT LATE ASKING THAT NOW DONT YOU THINK?
Oh my goodness YES – the changing bag thing. We have this too. We need the magic change bag fairies to come round and pack it all for us!
Takes me back…..5 year old Molly at the kitchen table, almost ready to leave for school when she decided that no one would realise she was a girl if she went to school wearing trousers. The skirt was thrown across the room with a sob….then years down the line you ” sort of miss” the drama of those mornings. NOT! Love ma x
Thanks Mum!!
YES!! THIS!!
Every single morning. Elfie in particular is bad and getting any sort of urgency leaving the house. Last week we lost one of her school shoes – we turned the house upside down looking for it then found it 24 hours later IN A COAT SLEEVE. This morning she told me five minutes before leaving she’d lost her library card so again I turned the house upside down looking… it was in her school bag. She generally likes to write stories and talk to Shopkins when I’m tearing around trying to get them all ready. NIGHTMARE.
To top it off, their dad’s in Thailand all month and the only hours he seems to want to Facetime? 7-9am. HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA.
FaceTime / text messaging / doing anything that isn’t getting kids ready is pretty much impossible in our house pre 9am! We’ve also had missing shoe incidents. How they end up where they do is anybody’s guess!
Oh Molly… I have much respect for anyone who managed to get anywhere before 9am with kiddos…no way could I do that!
It’s an ongoing struggle!
I SOOOOO hear you and I only have the one! So this morning we had me say the words ‘hey let’s find our shoes 37 times! 30 god dam 7!!! And that was just the start of our wonderful 15 minute dash and push my child through the door late before being noticed by the teacher and being hauled into the head mistress office like a teen. Oh the delight…and the joy is it starts all again tomorrow. It is the easiest way to agrevate the best of couples tomorrow we’re doing the school run together and then He’s going to by me coffee. oh yes. Pay back is sweet. Good luck for tomorrow lovely x
Man, I would LOVE for the NLM to be around in the morning long enough to witness the carnage AND buy me tea afterwards! What is it with kids and shoes by the way?!
Oh I KNOW……
We go through a very similar performance EVERY CHUFFING DAY – yesterday, at 8.05 am (when we are due to leave the house in 10 minutes) , I dashed into the lounge brandishing newly filled lunchboxes to find middle daughter half dressed & putting her dressing gown back on and Smallest daughter howling with laughter as she ran round with her pants on her head!!
When we got to school to find that Smallest daughter had also failed to bring her bag (because she was too busy singing a song about pink fluffy Unicorns and deciding what she would build on Mine craft later) I decided to give up – thankfully it wasn’t a major problem and her Teacher didn’t hold it against me at parents evening later!!!
This has been my life for at least the last 8yrs (sorry) and I can’t see it changing any time soon…..
*SOB* Does it not get any easier then? WAIL!
This is my life. Only in our case, it was bin liners of clothes to go to the Cancer Research Shop (which we’ve failed to take for days on end, and which stop me from getting the pushchair out without a mouthful of swearing and a few chips out of the paint on the walls). The only thing that keeps me sane during my weekday morning battles is the very comforting thought that I am not alone, and that thousands of other parents are fighting over precisely the same things with their kids at the same moment! Roll on the weekend! X
Ugh. Weekday mornings suck whatever you’re doing it seems!
Yes. This. I hear you. This is why school holidays rock x
Yay for school hols! (Can. Not. Wait. Until Feb.) xx