So, yes. I got to bed very late last night. By the time I finally put my phone down (not like I was scrolling a long time, but still — wrist slap for Emily!) my bedside clock said 00:00. Jarrod had a rough night and I was over-anticipating waking up at 6:45 to get the kids ready to go — especially knowing that I was most likely going to have to do the drop-off due to Jarrod’s rough night.
But weirdly, we had an amazing morning. Like, 10/10 smooth like peanut buttah. Why? How? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the definition of grace that I’ve been seeking.
Here’s a bad morning in our house:
The girls refuse to wake up. It’s 7:25 and I’m still in the process of packing lunches and snacks. Jarrod is in his room doing his morning stuff, having also slept in. I attempt to dress the girls. They refuse and kick their legs/pretend to still be asleep. I’m scrambling to brush hair, put shoes on, there goes the timer and we rush out the door. Allergy meds are forgotten. Hair is probably still not brushed. No one has eaten breakfast, and probably at least two out of three kids haven’t peed yet. (You’ll notice zero mention of Ambrose. Generally, he’s a gem in the morning. Always wakes up early, gets himself dressed, and reads in the rocking chair until it’s time to go. Sometimes it’s difficult to get him out the door, but we’ve even fixed this issue recently by using a timer as a dead-stop for leaving.)
Here’s how this morning went:
Ambrose crawled into the girls’ bed that I was sleeping in, because Liesl had come into my bed in the middle of the night complaining of congestion. (It’s always musical beds in our house, I tell you what.) So I went to Ambrose’s bed to finish out the last couple hours of the morning. This was good: it was very bright. Liesl came in at around 5:30, still complaining of congestion, and slept with me a bit, but by 6:00 was ready to wake up. She fell asleep quite early last night after kicking and hitting me a bunch because I wouldn’t walk her down to her friend’s house for dinner. It was a whole thing, but the takeaway here is that she got enough sleep and woke up feeling pretty good.
She read some books while I continued to doze. A bit later, Ambrose came in and got himself dressed. He tried asking me a bunch of questions but I told him I needed to sleep. Still, I was up by 6:30 or so. Knowing Theda had wanted me to wake her up early to take a shower, I opened her curtains. She pulled the blankets over her head. No worries.
I cleaned up our trashed kitchen and made coffee. Liesl read. Ambrose rocked and read. at 6:55 or so, Theda came out and asked me to get the shower ready for her. I got her situated, then grabbed clothes for Liesl and helped her get dressed. Then, I asked Ambrose what he wanted for snack and packed that. Past Me had made the other two snacks and Liesl’s lunch at around 11pm last night. Past Me is sometimes the best. I made Liesl a bagel that she didn’t even end up eating. Ambrose snacked on the graham crackers I’d left out.
Theda’s shower went long, but she was out by 7:20. I helped get her dressed, and gave Ambrose his allergy medicine. I got myself dressed then went outside to deliver some muffins and the rest of the Scotcharoos to the patio coffee social that was gearing up to happen. I noticed the girls’ friend was already outside playing, so I told them she was out there and that they had about 10 minutes to play with her. Everyone went outside. I grabbed Liesl’s allergy medicine and brought it out to her. Then I went back in and grabbed the backpacks.
We all went to the van. The drive to school was uneventful. Liesl wanted to go to Morning Care. We were so early that they hadn’t even started letting kids into the building. When they did, I walked Liesl inside. Then, I drove to Trader Joe’s, almost got charged for buying 40 granny smith apples (that’s a whole different story), came home, and spent the next 2 1/2 hours on the patio drinking coffee and socializing.
Like I said, the morning was amazing. In spite of a truly terrible night of sleep that is now just catching up with me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go lay down for a bit.