"There's one...set to stun"

Being the first to rise in the morning is an absolute necessity for me.  I have to “calibrate to the day,” and if anyone else is up with me (except my sweet fuzzy Addie), then it can’t happen.  I need time to have half a pot of coffee and do a little writing and sitting in silence.  It helps if I can be dressed and ready to walk out the door before anyone else is up, too. 

Some days, like today, I fail at that endeavor.  I didn’t sleep very well last night, so when my alarm went off at 5:30, I promptly reset it for 6:30.  Then at 6:30, I reset it for 7:30.  Before it could go off, I was awakened by Dave plopping a pajama-ed Cecilia next to me.  All went downhill from there. 

I just got back from vacation in Arizona yesterday, and so I should be well-rested and restored, with patience to spare.  But with no “calibrating to the day” I had to lock myself in Dave’s office before 8:00 so that little girls would leave me alone.  I turned on Thomas the Train, and that gave me just enough time to text Dave all sorts of rude and irrational things: 1) he must have REALLY spoiled the girls while I was gone, 2) we must be raising terrible whiny children who don’t listen to a word I say, 3) I can’t handle this anymore, and 4) (the crowning text, the piece de resistance) “I have the fattest and manliest neck in this entire joke of a world.”  I didn’t water that last one down for you all – it’s a direct quote from my iPhone.

We escaped to Choo Choo Bob’s for a while, then had McDonald’s in the car.  Now they are watching Pee Wee’s Playhouse while I type this. 

My standards are so low that sometimes I think I need to dig a hole in the ground to find a single one. 

The Morning Hustle

I think there is not a parent alive today who does not understand the difficulty of the morning hustle out the door.  In fact, there has probably never been, I mean in the history of the world, a parent who does not understand the unique irritation of Preschool Putz when trying to make it to the earliest engagement of the day.  I imagine the dads of the Upper Paleolithic era had several mornings with one foot out the cave, looking back and yelling to their sons to grab their spear and come NOW to get a jump on the best large game.  The son of course would yell back that he can’t FIND his spear, to which the dad would reply that it should be right where he LEFT it after the LAST large game hunt, and then the son would go looking and become distracted by the cave drawing he was working on yesterday.

In my house, we have a problem of figuring out priorities.  I can yell “we’re leaving in 10 minutes!” and then find Ellen wearing only underwear, furiously kneading some Play Doh and saying, “I KNOW Mom, that’s why I’m HURRYING to finish this Play Doh dog!”

After fighting this losing battle many times, I have determined that I can’t decide for Ellen what needs to get done in the morning for her to have a successful day (besides the obvious things like getting dressed, brushing teeth, and having breakfast).  My solution is to get her up a looong time before we have to leave, so that she has plenty of time for all the important stuff, like dressing her American Girl doll, making animal sculptures out of Play Doh, and packing her backpack for the overnight at Grammy and Papa’s which is happening five days later. 

If I have fewer moments to myself before the action starts in the morning, I have in exchange a peaceful and unhurried exodus.  At least until Cecilia dumps her cereal on the floor.