Getting My Girls Ready in the Morning - A Trial in Patience

My current situation: I work full time and my office is twenty steps away from my bedroom (yes, I’ve counted). My workday starts at 9am, so what time do I get up? 6am. Why? I hear you ask (or maybe you’ve just figured it out by the title), it's because I have two little ladies to get ready for their day. Me and my wife are first awake most of the time, especially if they’ve taken a while to get to sleep the night before, but eventually they're up, and the fun begins. She’ll be getting a shower and ironing, while I’ll be sorting my little girl’s lunch out for the day. No matter what, there’s always a packed schedule, and this fifteen minutes is as close as we'll get to bliss for the next two and a half hours.

The hint was there, but to be completely clear, my eldest is first up. Once I’ve finished fixing up her lunch, I’ll go back upstairs to make sure she is awake. As I ascend, I’ll pray that she’s up and bouncing across the bed; but often she’ll still be flat out, snoring. Oftentimes I’ll have to physically pick her up to rouse her, and even then she'll find a way to wriggle off me and back onto the bed. Every single morning, when she's completely in the land of the living, she'll always ask the same question: “can I have pancakes?” to which the answer will depend on whether she’s had any the day before. We run a loose rule, where she is generally not allowed pancakes two days running, but it can depend on how much of a rush we’re in that day (opening and gobbling pancakes being quicker than watching her sift through Bran Flakes). With that question our morning hangs in the balance; a no could send my stubborn goal down a path of whinging and whining that it is hard to come back from.

If, and it’s a big if, she’s managed to get through her breakfast in a timely manner, things can go relatively smoothly; if not, we’re in trouble (usually with the Mrs, who is running at a tight schedule to get into work on time). There is a plethora of things that we need to get done in what is ordinarily a 20-minute period; the main one being the need to get her dressed for school. One wrong move with the uniform – a pinch with the button, a flick with the tie or a sock heel in the wrong place – and she’ll be screaming for her mum before I know it. Not only does this slow her down, but it renders me relatively useless; with mere scraps like the toothbrush, the shoes, the bobbles and the packing of the car to do (it sounds a lot but this all takes less than five minutes in total). Then I'll have to ask her five times or more to go to the toilet before her relatively long car journey, ditto with brushing her teeth; especially as she won't take her eyes off the TV! This as she turns it up to an almost deafening level because her mum has finally gotten around to drying her own hair.

Then comes the crossover. Shoes and hair seem simple, but they can pose just as much of an issue as anything else. By now she’s gotten a little tired of getting ready and keeping her still to put her shoes on and hair in a pony tail can be tricky. Then comes the hassle of getting her into the car, before-which we’ll ask her if she wants to take anything, to which she'll say no and take whatever is in her hand. I'll clip her into the car seat, knowing full well that she will send me back inside for something. Once the car is packed with humans and toys alike, I’ll have just 20-minutes to sit and have a cup of coffee (As she reads this I can almost hear my wife slap her forehead, as during these 20 minutes she’s generally getting her ears chewed by my little girl on her way to work). This is presuming my littlest girl had not already awoken and the terrible twosome had forced our morning into almost complete disarray.

Getting my littlest girl up can be just as, if not more, difficult some days (although not as frequently difficult as it is with her sister), especially if she’s in a deep sleep. I’ll warm her up with a calm call before going down to sort her cereal out, which I do in advance because she likes to throw it down herself in an attempt to drink it mid-meal; so I let them soften before pouring three quarters of the milk down the drain. I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here though, as once the hoops are in the bowl, I’ll head upstairs in the hope that she is bouncing around her cot, or at least shouting. If she’s not, however, it could mean trouble, because it’s time to pick her up as she flops a little on my shoulder. In this instance, it will take the sound of one of her favourite TV shows to bring her around, shows that also act as a distraction when I get on with the worst part of our morning too: brushing her teeth. Here she’ll fight, oh she will fight, and by the end it will look like a tooth paste bomb has exploded over both of us, the couch, and whatever poor toys happen to be around at that time. This is why I will never, ever, get either of us dressed for the day beforehand.

What happens next depends on what day of the week it is. On a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday she goes with family, so the transition is easy; but on Thursday and Friday I take her on the 45-minute round trip to nursery. The uphill walk is something I could do without and, depending on the time, can mean I’m rushing back for work, but I guess that is my fault for not yet passing my driving test (and I suppose it gets me some exercise). I’d like to say that at the end of it all I wouldn’t have it any other way, but that wouldn’t technically be true. I could do without all the rushing about in the morning, I could do with being able to wake up just that little bit later, and I could do without some of the attitude from my little girl or my littlest girl's mess. I am also fully aware that this will not be the situation forever.

By Calum Dewsbury