Taming the Morning Chaos Monster

I can admit it. I was a little panicked when I thought about M starting back to school. Oh, I’d miss having her around again, but it wasn’t that that had me worried. It was the fact that I’d have to get myself and three kids dressed and fed and out the door by 8:20 in the morning.

I am not a morning person. I prefer to stay up late and sleep in late. My body generally does not want to sleep until late at night, and even then it sometimes balks.

Working with my known weakness as a lousy morning person, I realized I’d need to do as much preparation the night before as possible. Not a new concept, in fact, I had much of this routine established last year, before D was born.

I pour juice in two cups and put them in the refrigerator. I set out the Cheerios. I make M’s sandwich. I set out clothes for the kids. I put my own clothes and a towel in the bathroom.

Even all of this was not enough. I still felt crazed, rushed, except now I felt rushed at night.

So now I do a lot of the same prep work, but I do it once or twice during the week. I bought 2 hanging closet shoe organizers, the kind that have shelves. I pick out M’s and K’s clothes and pajamas for the week on Sundays. Each shelf holds one day’s clothes, complete with socks and underwear.

I bought 3 plastic reusable sandwich boxes (with princesses on them) at the Target dollar spot. I make 3 sandwiches for M’s lunches at once and refrigerate them. One of these weekends I’m going to make a few pb&js and freeze them too. I’ve also bought microwave meals (mac and cheese, pizza rolls) that I can nuke in 2 minutes and put in a Funtainer for her for occasional lunches.

How I’m going to get D fed in the morning when she starts eating cereal I don’t know. She may have to have a late breakfast. Maybe she’ll like brunch instead.

What do you do to tame the chaos in the morning?