My kids all have a morning checklist. They are supposed to get dressed, do their hair, eat breakfast, clean their rooms, and feed their animals. If they don't finish their checklist, they don't get any electronics after school.
While my kids are working on their morning checklists, I make sure lunches are packed, fix their breakfast (except on Friday, which is "Fix Your Own Friday"), do all the girls' hair, and try to get a little work done on myself (I can either put clothes on or brush my teeth - I can't usually tackle both. On days where I need to get ready for something, I'm just screwed. I'm still learning how to lower my expectations).
In the mornings, Nicky is usually the first kid up. Nicky is pretty good about getting ready for school, but I have to give him a few reminders. When Nicky is in a good mood, he's very talkative. He follows me around all morning and asks me question after question and tells me story after story. He is a little demanding about breakfast. He thinks he should get the works every morning - bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns... you name it. The kid should live at Village Inn or something. He's usually pretty disappointed in whatever I make, and he complains that he "feels like" a breakfast sandwich. He begs me every day to take him to McDonald's for a sausage mcmuffin. When Nicky is in a bad mood, he can be pretty aggravating. He stomps around and tells me how he hates his life and hates his sisters. He kicks walls and snaps at everyone. He's a big kid, so its basically like having a full-sized man throwing a tantrum in the kitchen. He takes up a lot of space and has the potential to do a lot of damage.
Nicky is still going through his "Hawaiian shirt and gym shorts' phase, so every morning he picks his Hawaiian shirt, and if there aren't any clean, he digs one out of the laundry. He does his own hair, and you can tell, but the good news is, he's starting to get better at it. Nicky usually has spare time in the morning, so he finds some strange activity to keep him busy. Today he made a tin foil hat and listened to Weird Al songs (just a side note - Scotty decided to show Nicky a Weird Al video several months ago, and I said, "You are going to regret this." Now Nicky is obsessed with Weird Al - heaven help us).
Nicky is always worried about getting to school on time. I assure him that he's not going to be late, but he wants to leave the house at 8:00 (we usually leave around 8:15 with much protesting on his part, and he still gets there 15 minutes before school starts).
Daisy is my most distracted child. She needs constant chiding to stay on task. I can give her one small instruction like, "Go put shoes on," and twenty minutes later I find her barefoot staring at a wall. She's also very sneaky - her version of cleaning her room is hiding everything under her bed, behind her clothes in the closet, or in her dresser drawers. I have to watch her like a hawk! Daisy gets up early of her own free will but then yells at everyone for waking her up. Every morning she claims she can't find her under shirt, her socks, her shoes, etc. and every morning I walk down to her room and find the items exactly where I told her they would be. Each day, Daisy is paranoid that I'm going to forget to pick her up from school. She makes me rehearse "the plan" to her every day (even though it's the same plan every day). She always spends half an hour "eating" breakfast, but then her plate is still full of food, and she tells me she's stuffed and doesn't feel good. Five minutes later she asks for more food. I think she just wants to be in control of what's for breakfast. As you can image, we butt heads a lot in the morning. I do her hair a few days a week and let her do her own a few days a week even though it's hard to let her leave the house like that sometimes. I have to do regular deodorant checks with her, and I can't ever really take her word for it when she says she brushed her teeth.
{The perfect meme for Daisy}
Daisy is tough to deal with at home, but she is always a good student at school. Praise and bless!
Of all my children, Zoe has the most Jekyll and Hyde tendencies. There's the sweet, funny Zoe, and then there's an animalistic version of her that I refer to as "Caveman Zo." I never know which version of her I'm going to wake up to. If she's in a good mood, she wakes up and independently gets ready for school. She's so proud of herself when she does this, and sometimes she'll even wrap herself up in a blanket and pretend she just got out of bed, but then she'll pull off her blanket and yell, "Ta-da! I tricked you!" and she's fully dressed. On days like this, she's excited about school and full of energy.
On her caveman days, though, watch out! She growls at everyone and sometimes snaps her teeth. She writhes on the ground and grunts and screams. She beats up on her siblings, yells at everyone all morning, throws stuff, and refuses to go to school. Zoe can be pretty physically aggressive when she goes into Caveman Mode, and that girl throws a punch like you wouldn't believe! Mornings with Zozo are a delight when she's in a good mood and atrocious when she's in a foul mood.
Since Eva only has school two days a week, I don't have to worry about her every day. On the days she doesn't have school, she can roll out of bed whenever she wants, and if she doesn't eat or get dressed, it's no big deal. On school days she's hit and miss. She has had some good mornings and some bad mornings.
Eva usually gets up at 5:30 and gets a sippy cup of milk and then goes back to bed. She usually doesn't sleep too late, but I have had to wake her up for school at least once so far. She's not a big breakfast eater, so it's been hard to make sure she's adequately fed before school. She usually just wants a cup of milk and a bag of Kix to eat on the way to school.
Finding matching shoes for Zoe and Eva is always a challenge. I will go around and find all of their shoes and put them away in the evening, and by morning, half of the shoes are missing. I have no idea what happens, but almost daily, we tear apart the house trying to find any matching pair of shoes so they can go to school. Their backpacks also routinely disappear - this is because they are both obsessed with backpacks, so they always empty their backpacks and then pack them full of toys and stuffed animals to haul around the house.
When we get to the school, Nicky and Daisy get out of the van just fine and head off to the playground, but I never know what Zoe and Eva are going to do. There are days they go into the school just fine, and there are days when one or the other clings to my legs screaming and has to be dragged in by a teacher.
By the time my kids are off to school each day, I am exhausted. My dreams of accomplishing great things while they're gone are crushed by my need to physically recover.
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