Morning Routine

Our mornings are so routine that I feel like I can account for every minute between 7-8am, and even though it is only 60 minutes, I am literally exhausted by the end of that hour. I really wish I was a morning person! The girls wake up at 7am, well, I should say that Emily wakes up at 7 and then she climbs in bed with Lilly. She pokes and prods at Lilly long enough to carefully wake her without Lilly knowing what she is doing. Emily is a morning person, Lilly is not.

By 7:10am we usually hear lots of giggling going on and once Ben/daddy cracks their door open, I know my comfy cozy peaceful rest is about to end, like a warm blanket being ripped off on a cold morning. My mornings usually start off with, “no, please don’t touch that”, “don’t go in there”, “come on, get out of the toilet”, “can you go downstairs and see daddy?”, “daddy has nanna for you”, “get out of there”, “it’s my chapstick”, “no, it’s MY chapstick”, “oh, please don’t ….DO THAT!”.

Finally, when I get really desperate and I just want 5 more min of sleep because I think it will make all the difference in my day, I say, “go downstairs and see Dora and Boots on TV and daddy has a nanna for you and a sippy cup, go, go see”(in a very encouraging voice)……. “Be careful on the stairs”. This only works 50% of the time and really only allows me about 5 more minutes of sleep. The fact that I try for this every day tells me that I’m not a morning person and I’m not learning to be one, as most said I would once I had children.

The next 45 min is about taking the girls back and forth to the potty, where they are more interested in playing with toilet paper, flushing, flushing, flushing and washing hands with soap as many times as possible before I nudge them out of that room. I am surprised at how resilient our toilets are, we have only called the plumber once so far.

And the dance continues as we sit down to eat the wonderful breakfast daddy made and the conversation includes: “Emily eat your eggs”, “no, I don’t want them,” “ok, I will give them to Lilly”, “NO, MY EGGS!!”, “gobble, gobble, gobble”, “eeewww Bluebabies”, “Do you like bluebabies Lilly?”, “YES!, where’s my veatamen?”, “I think it’s under your bagel”, “It’s under my bagel?”, “hee hee, it was hiding under my bagel”, “down, Down, DOWN!”, “you want down?”, “AYUDAME!, AYUDAME!”, “Dora is really helping you learn your Spanish isn’t she?, here, let me help you down”.

Are you at all tired from reading this yet? Next phase is getting dressed, where I always ask who’s first and Emi quickly replies, “Lilly’s first”. I think this is the only time Emily approves of Lilly going first. Sometimes getting dressed involves me chasing them or playing manipulative games in order to get the clothes, socks and shoes all on. If I’m lucky I can get a bow or hair clip in, if I ask really nicely and they are in great moods. If not, bed head it is and I really don’t care what the teachers or anyone else thinks!



We load them up in our luxury living room on wheels, (as I like to call it), and off to school with daddy they go as I stand in the garage waving and smiling a really big smile (and I think you know why I’m smiling). I then walk inside and mutter, “wow”, “just….WOW”, and then I go to work (did I say, “go to work”?). Just then it hits me, I am grateful for my job!