Call me Sarge

This? Is accomplished through the sacrifice of my sanity!

You know what STRESSES ME OUT? Getting my big kids ready for school. We have a routine. It still makes me crazy. Bobby gets the kids up and gets them breakfast while I nurse Jonah who is incapable of sleeping in until I get the big kids ready, natch. Then, I come down and fuss at the big kids while they eat as s-l-o-w-l-y as possible and mess around (while Bobby is making school lunches). After I threaten them about 75 times, they finish eating and go to the restroom and begin getting dressed.

Which is about the time Jonah decided he needs to nurse again.

So while I shout drill sergeant commands at Sophie, who cannot seem to put her clothes on without being yelled at, I nurse the baby again. (YES, my life would be SO MUCH EASIER if I weaned him. But I haven’t had 10 days that I could let him scream at me non-stop. Which is what it took with Sophie. Lord help us all.)

I pry him off by the time it’s time to do her hair, and then he fusses at me and tries to push his sister off of me while I brush her hair and make her look like a living doll. Which is slightly difficult when a toddler is trying to push her away while I’m strategically placing hair bows and flower clips. But we suffer through it.

Then I send her off to  brush her teeth (Joshua’s already ready at this point, he generally has no problems once breakfast is over) and all of a sudden Jonah is happy again and goes and plays. Of course.

After all teeth are brushed, I coach the big kids through the CLEARLY arduous process of – gasp!- putting their coats and backpacks on!  And grabbing their lunch boxes!  It only takes about 27 minutes of nagging for this to occur.

Finally, Bobby appears, uniform on, and whisks them out the door to school.

And I resist the urge to go buy some xanax off the street and have a cup of coffee instead.

Tomorrow I think I’ll just stay in bed with Jonah and let them fend for themselves! I can’t stand being a drill sergeant all morning!

What’s your morning routine like? Tell me about it in the comments. Unless it’s all sunshine and roses and then I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT!

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14 Replies to “Call me Sarge”

  1. I have to wake up at 4am to get myself ready for work. Then I get my kids up at 5:15am which is the hardest thing ever…they are 2 and 4 and the whole time time trying to get them ready they are crying and begging to go back to sleep. I have to fight with them to get up…I have to dress them..then drag two screaming crying girls into the bathroom to do hair and bruch their teeth…which some mornings does not get done with my 2 year old because she is throwing a fit and flopping all over the floor! We pull up to daycare at 6am and they start crying again because they don’t want to go. they beg me to please stay with them and not go to work….I peel them off while telling them how sorry I am then run out of the door because I have to be at work by 6:15 until 5pm…I feel like my heart is being ripped out every morning because I feel lke such a horrible mom for working…I want to be a SHAM so bad but then bills would not get paid..Life sucks

  2. Looks like fewer threats and more action is in order. But then, I was Red Foreman kinda dad!

    And of course, my kids are perfect, I never had stress in getting them ready for school, I was already at work!

    UP

  3. Wow, this sounds a lot like my mornings and I only have one to get ready for school. I even went out and bought a timer so she would know how long she had to get ready. That worked until she figured out she could turn the dial to give herself extra time. I’ve figured out though, that if I’m not home in the morning when she gets ready, she does everything for daddy without being nagged. I think she does it to me just cause she knows it drives me crazy.

    1. My daughter is the same way. When dad was in charge she did everything quickly and without nagging. Grr!

  4. My son is pretty good at getting ready in the morning too, but my daughter, my second-born, not so much. She requires constant reminders and most of them must be very loud for her to actually pay attention. She is easily distracted and doesn’t remember the few things that must actually be accomplished before going to school. The coat thing drives me crazy! Just put it on!! If you get hot, then by all means, take it off. I will not allow you to go to school when it is 40 degrees with no coat even though you assure me that it is warm enough outside! I recently stood in the kitchen yelling, “I am in charge” to my oldest son which I’m sure was very convincing. Some days, I guess I just don’t have what it takes!

  5. I have a *rule* that they can’t come downstairs until they are bathed, dressed, sock-d, shoe-d and brushed. If any of these are missed, it gets ugly and gets ugly fast. 😉

  6. I feel guilty that I physically dress my 5-year-old most days although he is perfectly capable…it just wouldn’t get done otherwise. But the 75 threat thing? I don’t do that any more because it makes ME angry to have to repeat myself so many times, and I know that the kids are only learning that they don’t have to pay attention the first 74 times or only pay attention if I yell. So I subtract the favored currency – iPad minutes – if he doesn’t obey the first time I ask him (with my regular voice!) to do something. We are still a long way from perfection, but I don’t get angry enough to yell. If he persists in not doing the right thing, I start counting, and the # I get to is the # of additional iPad mintues that are lost. I don’t have to worry too much about my 2-year-old yet; he hasn’t hit the terrible two’s yet; all my discipline issues center around the 5-year-old.

  7. My kids are the same way with breakfast. I finally had to start getting them dressed at the breakfast table and that made a huge improvement.

  8. You are not alone! I can’t stand weekday mornings. My alarm goes off at 5:15 – I know I must drag myself out of bed by 5:30 to get a shower and dressed before waking up my 7 year old at 6:00. She usuallly does well getting dressed and making her bed – it’s breakfast that slows her down every single time! And Lord help us if she has to use the bathroom because then we’re really running late! During this I am usually running around getting my 12 month old’s bag and lunch ready for daycare – if I’m lucky I *might* have time to make something for my own lunch! The baby wakes up any time in this window and I usually stick her in her high chair with a sippy cup and some Cheerios to keep her content. Then it’s time for the 7 year old to brush her teeth and hair so that I can “style” it for the day. We are out the door at 6:50 so I can drop them off at the sitter’s and at school and make it to work just on time. We usually use the time in the car for her to get her shoes on, and that’s also when I quiz her on spelling and vocabulary words and maybe a reading fluency passage.
    I get tired of the nagging every morning too… I honestly could not tell you why it takes so long to eat breakfast!

  9. Also, none of my business, but I just finished nursing/pumping for my baby girl and I feel revitalized having that *extra* time again. I was getting up at 5:00 just to pump. Of course I said when I finished with that I was going to keep getting up early and getting on the treadmill instead, but that hasn’t happened yet! 🙂
    One good thing was that my husband had come around to fixing our oldest’s breakfast and packing her lunch because I just didn’t have enough time and he’s still doing it now, which is awesome! 🙂

  10. Two things: sticker chart & cartoons. I know that it may sound babyish, but I made a chart for my 8 & 5 year old. When they are done with their sticker chart for the morning they get to watch old episodes of Tom & Jerry (insert appropriate reward for your kiddos). I’m no longer the one repeating the morning to do list. It’s on the chart. If they don’t complete their morning tasks quickly enough, they run out of time to watch cartoons. (and I was that mom who said her kiddos would never watch TV before school…)

  11. Mine hates mornings, and we don’t even get up that early, on comparison. We get up at 6:15 and from there it’s a constant chorus from the lovely daughter of “I’m cold, I don’t want to go to school, I’m cold”. I pretty much dress her completely

  12. This sounds like my mornings minus the nursing child part. Every single day is a battle to get my two off to school!!

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