Until C was 4 and Little L was 2 our mornings were all frenzied, rushed, and stressful. We never had enough time to get everything done, someone inevitably cried, someone else inevitably yelled (usually me), and we always forgot something at home.
We were usually on time, but it’s safe to assume that we all got to where we needed to be still wound up and stressed out.
The stressful mornings slowed down when I started working for myself. They stopped completely when C started going to afternoon preschool. Instead of rushing to pack everything into a short hour and a half, we do what we have to do and leave the house whenever we are good and ready. Gone are the cries, the yells, and the forgetting of everything. Laundry gets done, everyone has breakfast, and we sing in the car instead of stewing.
Some days we don’t leave home before 10:30.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our lazy mornings. I love not rolling out of bed until M heads out for work at 7:30. It fills me with quiet joy to hear C and Little L playing in their rooms. I even enjoy giving them a long fun bath in the morning, not feeling the rush of an impending bed time, or the stress of two little girls tired out by a long day. And it’s especially nice to be able to savor my morning tea instead of gulping it down and burning my throat, not to mention actually getting to peruse the morning paper on the morning we receive it, not a large stack on the weekends.
These days I’m savoring the mornings even more. While I had been taking them for granted, the Kindergarten hunt opened my eyes to the fact that they’re numbered.
Come September C will have to be at school by 8:30 every day. Little L will have to be at preschool at 8 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And our lazy mornings will be a thing of the past, or a thing of vacations and holidays.
We’ll need to get back into a stringent routine, need to figure out outfits the night before, plan lunches along with our weekly dinners, and I’ll have to find another time to deal with the monstrous piles of laundry. Our hair styling sessions will be pared down to the basics, reserving the more elaborate dos for the weekends or parties. It’s even possible that we’ll once again be subject to the occasional bouts of crying, screaming, and forgetfulness.
I hope not though. I hope that our year of lazy mornings will have taught us to let go of some of that stress. Or maybe with two older children better able to tend to their own needs the burden of getting everyone out of the house – clean, fed, dressed – won’t rest so heavily on my shoulders.
We won’t find out for a few more months. In the meantime I’m going to thoroughly enjoy taking our sweet time in the morning.
