No, I’m not talking about traffic. I’m talking about the morning rush at home. First hurdle: getting out of bed on time. Every morning I tell myself I will go to bed early that night…and then I don’t. What can I say, I’m a night owl. Next: waking the kids, who were so full of energy around bed time last night and kept getting out of bed with the lamest excuse (can I get a hug? 💙). Getting the kids and ourselves ready, making sure everyone’s fed, preparing lunches and snacks, putting everything in the correct lunch bag, ushering the kids into the car, preferably wearing shoes and coats. Trying not to forget the school and lunch bags and anything else the kids were supposed to bring or wear to school that day (The little one’s field trip, was that today? A shoe box and tissues for the eldest, check! Shoot, still need to find a baby picture of the middle one!). It must be said that the hubbie and I are a well oiled machine but, still human, we have our off days when we almost send our kids to school with the lunch bags we forgot to unpack the night before…before you call social services on us, this almost happened like once! Hurrying to school, trying to find a parking spot and the calm among the chaos at school. Having successfully dropped off three kids at three different playgrounds 🙌 it’s time to relax…at work 🤪

Some time ago I decided to get up a bit earlier. I know those extra 15 minutes of sleep are not going to make a difference (I feel like a zombie anyway) but when Lianne La Havas wakes me, albeit gently, at the crack of dawn, all I want to do is sleep. And sometimes I do, for as long as I can. But when I do manage to get up earlier, I enjoy having some time to myself, the quiet before the storm, before the kids are awake, to wake up at my own pace. The kids don’t need as much time to wake up as I do. Those first few minutes when they’re still sleep drunk, snuggling under a blanket on the couch, trying hard not to wake up, the kids are just adorable. But before you know it they’ll have picked up where they left off the night before, as if night time and sleep just didn’t happen, they seem able to keep going, constantly interrupting my train of thought.

Mornings sound eventful, right? Evening rush has its own challenges. At best I’m relaxed and at ease, at worst I’m tired and stressed out when I’m rushing to pick up the kids from school. Back home I’m either having a meeting or preparing dinner. If I’m lucky and the kids are well rested, they can play together nicely. But more likely there will be crying, whining and fighting as they usually stay up way past their bed time. Making an effort to put a home cooked meal on the table (can’t have pizza and fries every day, or can we?), I’m prepared for the worst (kids pretending to throw up at the sight of the food), grateful when one of the kids gives me a compliment on the food, blissful when all my kids have finished their plates without me having to take extraordinary measures (like bribing them or threatening with no desert and screen time, against all the parenting rules, I know). The problem during week days is that I feel like we constantly need to rush things, especially in the evening. There’s so much to do in those few hours between getting home from school and bed time, I feel there’s little time to waste or it’ll mean less play time or no bed time story. I wish I had more time to take things slowly. On rare occasions I sit in the couch with my little one after school watching whatever it is she’s into at that moment and I know she loves it just as much as I do 💙