Our Morning Routine

Since Rob has gone back to school and Toby has started daycare, I have noticed a dramatic CHANGE in my usual morning routine.

Rob leaves before I get up. Or Toby gets up. Or even the SUN gets up. Which is, in my opinion, WAAAY too early. But he’s a morning person so he does it cheerfully. And hey, if you’re going to be woken up by SOMETHING it’s nice that it’s a happy husband’s whistles than a cranky moan. Which is the way I usually wake up…

The moan escapes my lips the moment my eyes open and I realize that :
a) it’s morning
b) the kid is awake and banging on his crib to get up
and
c) I have all of 2 minutes to get myself up, showered, dressed and looking presentable before he discovers how to climb out of his crib and comes to get me himself.

Once I am 100% ready to go, I get him up and the fun begins. 100% ready to go meaning whatever I happen to get accomplished in my 2 minutes of morning solitude….

I sometimes wonder how I was ever LATE before I had a kid. I mean, seriously, what is there to make you late when it’s just YOU? I don’t cry and kick my legs and wiggle my bum when I try to get my underwear on. And I don’t run around the house in circles, naked, trying to engage someone in a game of tag before putting on my clothes in the morning. (Ohhhhh no…the days of that are LOOOOONG gone…). And I don’t spill my breakfast over my belly and then get upset and smear it into my hair and cry until the snot drips down into my mouth and yoghurt. And I don’t require a thick application of suntan lotion on all 4 of my fast moving extremeties before going off to work for the day. And, perhaps most importantly and the current BAIN of my existence, I don’t come with an automatic-at-all-times-HAT requirement.

Mornings at our place take great SKILL and EFFICIENCY. By 8:15 when I leave the house, and everyone else in the world is probably sipping coffee while reading their newspaper, I can quietly gloat to myself about my sense of accomplishment for the day.

So this morning, when I realized that I had managed to get myself AND the kid dressed, cleaned, diapered, suntan-lotioned, fed, caffeinated and ready to go (hat and all), I was excited. And when I realized that I had done ALL of that WITHOUT getting yoghurt, snot, coffee OR suntan lotion on myself I got even MORE excited. And when I realized I had done ALL of that and it was only 8:14am ….I got cocky. And that’s when I made my fatal mistake.

I decided to go and brush my teeth.

I blame it on a lack of concentration. And I know it doesn’t take MUCH concentration to brush your teeth. But this last minute tooth brushing occurred in the context of a dressed-fed-suntanlotion-ed-hat-wearing-ready-for-daycare-18-month-old who was hopping from foot to foot, tugging on my pants while yelling “MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!” at a cacophonous rate.

Have YOU ever tried to do anything while someone stood beside you and yelled your name on repeat at ear splitting decibles?

In any case, I lost my concentration and forgot to close my mouth and drooled my mouthful of toothpaste all…..down…my…..clean ….blouse…..

No gloating today!