Tuesday, November 09, 2010

maybe some day joy will showeth up in the morning

So, what is it like to get out the door every morning by 7:30 with five children dressed, fed, shod and in a reasonable frame of mind? (Well, skip the 'reasonable frame of mind', that's non essential). Maybe you aren't asking yourself this question, having other more important things to do, but I've sort of been wondering how we manage to do it, morning after morning, and how it is that I'm still standing on two feet.

It is crazy.
I'm not a morning person. At. All. I wake up almost every morning with a a gentle swear word on my lips and an ugly light in my eye. Usually there's already a couple of kids in my bed, wiggling, kicking and sometimes shouting. I can't bear actual light at 5:30 so I stagger around in the dark looking for a candle to light. And then I sit on the floor of the shower and start racking up anxiety about stuff like 'Oh No, we don't have enough shepherd's staffs for the Christmas Pageant!' or 'what if May isn't warm enough to seriously garden and I don't get my zucchini in the ground soon enough!'

Eventually I manage to get downstairs where I wander around the kitchen buttering reams of toast and cooking oatmeal in the microwave and watching dispassionately as Romulus weeps because we're have the wrong snack, weeps because he cannot find spiderman and weeps because someone is already sitting in the red chair.

Then suddenly, at 7:20, I hit full bore panic and start shouting and screaming at everyone to get in the car and get their back packs and for Pete's sake STOP SCREAMING. This morning I smeared peanut butter all over myself at 7:27 and then dumped over my travel mug of tepid tea whilst tearing my sweater off in anger and heartbreak. We were very late for school--the first time.

On that note, I'm going to sleep. Its 9:30 and 5:30 will be down my throat before I can say Jack Robinson.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

After reading about yours, my mornings seem so much easier!

Today I pulled out of the garage as my 10 yr old ran to the car panic-stricken. I rolled down the window and told him big sister was driving him to school--I'm leaving for boot-camp workout. Until I said that he had a look on his face that indicated he was worried I would make him jog alongside the car to get to school!