Things To Expect When Expecting Your Kids To Get Ready For School In The Morning!

After the older 3 Freckled Faces being off school for 2 weeks, we are now getting back in to the School Run and a few things have stood out to me about our mornings. I thought I would share them in the hope it might make other mums feel a bit better and maybe even prepare those who have yet to do the whole getting ready for school thing.

Now this isn’t for all kids, but if you expect this to happen – with any luck you might be pleasantly surprised!

Firstly, there’ll be good mornings and bad mornings….. Here’s what you can expect…

Wake Up

At the weekend kids are up bright and early and parents are begging for them to go back to sleep. On a school day you need to go in and wake them up….about a million times! It will go something like this –

“Morning Sweetie, time to wake up now”

15 minutes pass

“Come on lovely, you really need to get up now”

another 15 minutes pass

“GET YOUR TINY LITTLE BUTT OUT OF THAT BED NOW!”

Breakfast

They drag themselves down the stairs (or occasionally you might drag them), and then take about 5hrs to decide what they want for breakfast…ok slight exaggeration – but it feels like aaaaages when you’re trying to rush! Also expect there to be arguments over bowls, spoons, cups, vitamins, and sometimes the whole “you can’t have the same cereal as me!” and “she’s breathing my air!” type of things come up. They also may take forever to eat their breakfast…..and if you ask them to hurry up – they just get slower!?

Getting Dressed

TOP TIP! – make sure the uniforms are laid out the night before! Doing this will cut down the getting dressed time dramatically! You won’t get any “Mum, I can’t find my shirt….or tie…..or jumper…..I can’t find ANYTHING!” (side note – they can’t find anything because they NEVER LOOK!!)

You may need to remind them to keep getting dressed as they seem to get distracted by absolutely anything! Sometimes if they’re feeling grumpy, they will keep trying to pick arguments with siblings or whind them up. Stuff like this “MUM, SHE JUST WHACKED ME ON THE HEAD REALLY HARD!!” then less than a second later the defendant pipes up with “NO I DIDN’T! I JUST PATTED HER ON THE HEAD.”  To which you reply (with extreme calmness- obviously) “WHY DO YOU EVEN NEED TO TOUCH HER HEAD OR GO NEAR HER AT ALL!??”

Brushing Teeth

Personally, I would rather they brush their teeth before getting dressed- as then there’s less chance of them getting toothpaste down their tie and/or jumper….and even skirt!? However they tend to mostly do it after getting dressed, and as long as it gets done I’m happy.

If they’re brushing their all brushing  teeth at the same time – you may get shoving, arguing and mess….so much mess. I swear their sink is the thing I clean most in the house!? You may hear things like this “MUM, SHE’S STARING AT ME WHILE I’M BRUSHING MY TEETH!” and “MUM, HE SPAT OUT AT THE SAME TIME I DID – ON PURPOSE!!”  Shock, horror! How very dare he.

Double Checking Bags

This will go something like this…

“Did you put your books, lunch and P.E in your bag?”

“Yep!”

You look to check….”Where are you trainers? Where are you shorts? Where is your reading book?”

“Oh, I though they were in there.” OR “I don’t know?”

Shoes and Coat on

You know those moments when your kids ask to go to the park or a farm or somewhere they really want to go and they’re dressed and got their shoes on and are ready to go? Yeah, that doesn’t happen. Their ability to put their own shoes and coat on all of a sudden goes! They come up with so many reasons of why can’t do it yet too. “I’m just reading something” OR “I’ve remembered I need to take something in to school” OR “I’m just watching this plant grow” etc etc.

Out the Door

Drill Sergant time “Go Go GO!!!”

 

So….these are our bad days. Luckily we have good days too. Maybe we’ll share those in another blog post? Let us know in the comments below if you want us too (and remember- you don’t have to put your name or email address if you don’t want to. You can just add a comment anonymously)

Do you have a similar experience in the mornings??