Hop out of bed at 6 AM; the husband has an early meeting, so breakfast has to be prompt. Throw the oats into the boiling water, and start the coffee maker – a big pot, to accommodate this morning’s mugs and a thermos for him to take to work. At 6:30, call husband out of bed to eat together.
At 7, when he goes down to shower, go to wake up kids – a little earlier than usual, but the older kid has to do some extra homework that he didn’t get done before Scouts the night before. Try to kiss the preschooler awake, and get an (accidental, he claims) elbow to the eye. Retreat; hear the garbage truck coming, and hurry to get the garbage to the curb before attempting to finish your coffee in peace.
Before you can get the coffee down, there’s a crisis: the older kid, despite being told not to, wore his glasses to bed last night, and now they’re “broken.” Examine them and find they’re simply missing a screw on the side. You don’t have a glasses repair kit handy, so you fix it with beading wire and a Swiss Army knife. Insist that he eat breakfast.
Comb the baby’s hair, despite the wriggling. Brush the baby’s teeth, ditto.
Argue over the homework issue (he claims it’s not due today, though the homework planner doesn’t say that, and he’s tried to get out of homework in the past using that route). Don’t yell, and be very proud of yourself for not yelling (so what if your voice started to go up a little there at the end?). Get him situated with his desk and paper. Say goodbye to the husband; feed the baby breakfast and pack two lunches (no apple for the big kid, who just takes three bites and throws the rest away, so he gets the fiber-enriched applesauce instead) while providing helpful haiku-writing tips and spelling assistance.
Go upstairs, and multitask your way through stripping and changing the bed sheets, throwing on running clothes, and coaching the baby through writing the word “SWORD” (it’s the letter S week at preschool) on a piece of paper. (“How do I make a W?” Write it in the air for him several times, then help him fix the “M” he made instead.) The big kid finishes his homework, and he’s on his way out the door when you spy his reading book on the floor; chase him down and cram it into his backpack.
Gather more laundry; brush your own teeth and hair. Discover your half-mug of coffee, now cold. Coach the baby into how to write a 5 (“like an S on which somebody dropped a rock”). Breathe: you have five minutes before you have to leave the house in which to do so.
maybe I need to clean my contact lenses. I thought you threw cats in the hot water for your husband’s breakfast.
That could have been even more exciting.
I think you did a wonderful job!