This was NOT the original blog post that I meant to write today, but when life hands you blog post material you need to run with it! Mornings can make or break your day. Sometimes the morning can set the tone for the entire rest of the day, color it either a bright cheerful rainbow, or leave you with a gloom and doom dark cloud hanging over your head. I pray to God that this morning was a fluke, hopefully it will not be an indication of how the participants will act the rest of the day… Here’s to clinging onto hope!
My husband leaves for work early in the morning, so I am by myself with the kids when I try to shower, get dressed, get them dressed, fed and ready for school. We try to be ready to walk out of the door by the time our nanny arrives. Normally I am successful and I have all four kids ready and happy by the time she walks in the door – this morning… not the case!
On the bright side – I am thrilled to report that our kids apparently subscribe to the rule of “only one kid screaming at a time”! I have no idea how they came up with it, if they had a “meeting of the minds”, a sit-down conference where they discussed how far they could and wanted to push their parents’ sanity – but regardless – only one kid cried or screamed at a time this morning, which was the delightful part of my morning.
First Jonah woke up WHILE I was in the shower, so any make up or further fancying of my appearance was an impossibility. I was lucky to even get dressed because he was crying so hard. I picked him up and silenced him with my mere presence (yeah for easy babies), but then Jansen took the crying-baton and ran with it! Let it be known that Jansen is two years old and is taking the whole “terrible two” as a very serious responsibility. As most two year olds, Jansen has his day set in a routine starting from the moment he wakes up until the time his head hits the pillow at night. This morning he woke up a little later than normal, so his big brother Jacob was already out of bed and dressed. Jansen usually wakes him up in the mornings, so that just set off a domino effect of meltdowns. Poor Jansen was unable to compose himself and instead just found one reason after another to melt, until he finally conceded and said “milk please”. Once he had his bottle of milk life was good again in Jansen’s world.
In the meantime a miracle happened with Jordan (5). He is normally my wild card in the mornings. He needs to wake up on just the right side of the bed otherwise we have meltdowns from him. Maybe it was seeing how his brother acted that made him realize that losing composure like that is not attractive, or perhaps it was just the “only one kid screaming at a time” rule that was in effect – either way – Jordan was an angel today. He got himself dressed, which isn’t always a given. He ate breakfast without needing it reheated and without leaving anything on his plate. The final words from him were “mama, I have my shoes on, what else would you like me to do?” – Huh?! Is this my Jordan?! He is usually the last to get ready and balks at every step in the morning process of getting out of the door. I was so proud of him!
Our nanny arrived and I finally was able to sit down and nurse Jonah, who had been patiently waiting for his breakfast. At this point we were running 15 minutes behind schedule. Once I got Jacob, Jordan and Jonah all loaded in the car, Jonah decided it was his turn to cry – so he cried the whole way to Jacob’s school and finally settled down as we pulled into the parking lot. Jordan said, with an exhausted tone of voice “this has been a horrible morning, mama!”
I had to agree that it was a tiring morning, but I was still on cloud nine over how well Jordan handled getting ready that no amount of screaming or crying could take that away from me. I can handle the two’s, the three’s and the four’s – as long as I know there is light at the end of the tunnel once they turn five! Bring it on, kids! This mama is prepared for you – I am armed with hope and proof that the meltdowns diminish with time! A few tears in the morning won’t color my day – and after a hug, a kiss and a bottle of milk – your day will be better too!
