The Morning Routine
Getting a six year old and an eight year-old from catatonic in front of the TV to fit for the outside world in less than an hour requires military-level planning.
6am - I’m awake, whether I like it or not. Depending on my mood, it's time to either get a bit of overnight doomscrolling in or run downstairs, grab a coffee, and then sit at my laptop tippity-tapping away in the blissful, blissful silence until…
7.00am - A noise from outside. Specifically, a noise that sounds like a cardboard box full of clogs being pushed down the stairs. Older kid must be getting up.
7.10am - Another noise from outside, this time the sound of a box of trainers being pushed down the stairs. Younger kid must be getting up.
7.25am - Admit to myself the 2,000 word magnum opus on great crossbars I have known (which will be read by 80 people, 70 of whom will be concerned for my mental health while the other ten of whom absolutely adore it) is not going to be completed before the morning routine really kicks off. It will earn me precisely no money whatsoever, so whether it’s worth writing is something of a moot point.
7.28am - Put the kettle on again. Spend 90 seconds worrying about what that pretty important thing that I needed to remember is that I've definitely forgotten.
7.30am - Begin preparation of breakfast. Two slices of brown toast with just butter on it and a bowl of cereal for each of them. Dismiss juvenile complaints about giving them coco pops. I'm uneasy about loading them with sugar at this time of the morning. Their teachers deserve better.
7.35am - Make two packed lunches. It's important that I keep my head screwed on for this, since I have been known to put the wrong sandwiches in the wrong lunchboxes or the wrong lunchboxes in the wrong bags and hell hath no fury like a child who thought they were going to get a cheese sandwich but has instead received a jam sandwich.
7.45am - Have mild panic over whether there's enough clean school uniform. Also, do either of them have PE today? They each have it two days a week (always on different days, of course) and they have to wear their PE stuff all day if they do.
7.55am - Shower time, volume one. Older kid first, because he has at least gotten the hang of drying and dressing himself yet, though he hasn't quite yet got the hang of regularly brushing his hair yet, meaning that he does occasionally appear from his bedroom looking like he should be fighting with the police over the right to have a 48 hour rave at Stonehenge.
8.00am - Shower time, volume two. Younger kid second, since he definitely won't dry himself and if I leave him to dress himself he will almost certainly emerge with his shirt on backwards, his head poking out through a sleeve, or something else which is considerably more difficult to achieve than actually getting everything on in the right position.
8.05am - Receive dispiriting email from Stripe, my payment processors, advising me that I'll be receiving £8.26 today. Catch up on messages in the mums WhatsApp groups (there’s one for each class), which are usually the same woman asking what days PE are. Resist the urge to reply deliberately giving the wrong days.
8.10am - Put older child's tie round my own neck, tie it, and then release it just enough to be able to pull it back over my head and place it over his head, and then tighten it properly. Check that he's got his shirt tucked in (he usually hasn’t) and is wearing actual school uniform and not his flamenco dancers dress or something else that I find utterly unfathomably oblique as appropriate clothing for going to school.
8.15am - Summon kids back to bathroom to brush teeth. Receive request from younger child to squeeze his toothpaste for him three minutes later. Ask him what he's been doing for the last three minutes which has prevented him from asking this until now. Receive wholly unsatisfactory answer to this question.
8.19am - Remember important thing that I needed to remember at 7.28am. Run upstairs to laptop, log into My Child At School, which is the worst thing in the history of the universe, and give consent for younger child to go on school trip, which is tomorrow and over which I have been receiving increasingly frantic emails from the school about over the last 48 hours.
8.22am - Instruct kids that it's time to get their shoes on. Check how much toothpaste younger kid has dribbled down the front of his clean jumper (always more than none) and attempt (always unsuccessfully) to remove it. If I have time, Google “can you buy navy blue toothpaste”.
8.23am - Get asked by younger child whether he's got his shoes on the right feet. He does not. (How can he not feel whether he has or not?)
8.25am - Leave house for school. First walk is up to older kid's school (they actually go to the same school now since a merger last year, but they've arsed up the merger, meaning that effectively they're still at two different schools at two different sites which now have the same name, something which proves extremely challenging when they both use email as their primary communication method and don't often distinguish which site they're emailing from), during which I will be asked at least three questions in the following vein (these questions are ALWAYS preceded by the dread words, "Daddy, I have a question") - What's the most famous colour? How many diamonds are there in the world? What would happen if a skyscraper fell over?
8.35am - Deposit older kid at school. Take younger kid round to his school, fielding his questions on the way. What's your favourite Sonic movie? How many days is it until my birthday? Could the Hulk beat Superman in a fight? I’ve only seen the first movie, darling. It’s 33 days until your birthday, sweetheart. I have no idea, pickle. I guess Superman could fly out of the reach of the Hulk’s punches, so I’d probably go for Superman.
8.45am - Deposit younger kid at school. Eight times out of ten there will be another kid having some sort of meltdown at the very idea of having to so much as enter a classroom. No matter how skittish he can be at times, this has never been younger kid.
8.50am - Get stopped by one of the teachers for a quick chat on the gate. Make the most of this. It’ll likely be the last face to face conversation that I have for the next six hours.
9.00am - Get home—one of the big advantages of my school run is that at least the final leg of the circular journey that I have to make every morning takes less than five minutes—make another cup of coffee, and sit down on the sofa in the silence for half an hour before I start work. You have no idea how precious this thirty minutes is to me.
9.30am - Three and a half hours after I got up and having already walked almost two miles, it’s time to start my day.
Ah, love that mate!
Excellent and very funny! Glad I'm past parenting young children....