Todd and I talked about how we were going to handle the morning madness before I officially changed my work schedule. I have to be at work at 7AM and that really means that Todd should handle setting his own alarm, getting the kids up and dressed, feeding the kids, and dropping them off at school. Morning sucks, the kids never want to get out of bed, they definitely don't want to get dressed, and getting them out the door can easily be the most frustrating part of the day. Because morning sucks I feel really bad for leaving Todd alone to deal with it all. So, I started trying to figure out how to pack their lunches, wake Todd up, get the kids out of bed, get them dressed, and at least get them started with breakfast. The problem with this is that I just don't have time to do it. So, when I try to get them up and they take an extra few minutes I get grumpy, and when they whine about getting dressed I get stressed, and when they won't just brush their teeth I want to stomp my feet on the ground like a little kid. By the time we all get downstairs I'm totally worked up and at least one of the kids is usually whining. I can't deal with whining on a good day so when I'm stressed and just want to get out the door it seriously makes me want to bang my head against the wall -so when I hear the whining I get more stressed and my stress definitely doesn't help with the whining... What is Todd doing during all this time? He's just trying to stay out of my way. And that usually makes me edgy too because I know I can't do it all myself.
Starting this week I'm going to stay out of the way in the morning. There is no reason for me to "help Todd", he's perfectly capable of dealing with things, has the time, and would be much happier if I just got out of the way. So for the past 2 mornings, I've gotten home from the gym, taken and shower, woken everyone up, and basically went about my own business. I told the kids when I was going downstairs, but didn't tell them they had to come with me, didn't remind them 5-10 times to get dressed, didn't tell them to brush their teeth, etc... to my surprise, both kids were dressed and ready to come downstairs with me both mornings. Within 5 minutes of walking downstairs I was out the door with a coffee (made by Todd) in hand. And guess what? Everyone was fine, better than fine, they were all happy and not at all stressed out. -And if I'm honest with myself, they were all happy because I stayed out of the way. I have a pretty fabulous partner in Todd so why am I trying to do it all on my own?
No comments:
Post a Comment