The school bus is coming in 15 minutes, you can't find any 
of the snacks you bought for your kids' lunches and have a 
sneaking suspicion your husband ate them last night, your 
daughter can't find a ponytail holder, and your baby isn't 
dressed yet. 

And this is a normal day!

Morning chaos makes you grumpy, makes your kids stressed, and is
a horrible way to start your day. And it isn't just for those 
parents who need to get kids ready for school. It's also for
those of us who are dashing out the door to go to work, or for
those of us who are actually staying home to homeschool. No 
matter what our days are like, if mornings don't run smoothly,
our whole day can be thrown off. Here's how to attack that 
morning chaos:

1. Begin the Night Before

The biggest impediment to a smooth morning is sleeping in. If 
you're exhausted, and try to catch even an extra ten minutes
of sleep, you can throw the rest of your early morning routine
into full throttle mode--not exactly fun if you're tired to
begin with!

So make a promise to yourself to get to bed at a decent hour.
If you need nine hours to function, then make sure you're in 
bed--and asleep--by 10. It may mean sacrificing that TV
show, or that novel you wanted to read, but if you carve out
time during your day to have that time to yourself, even 
if it's just a half hour for lunch, it's easier to let yourself
sleep at night.

Next, plan your mornings. We know it's a good idea to plan 
our dinners for the week, but planning our breakfasts is smart,
too. Nobody wants to yell for the children to get themselves
some cereal, only to find you're out of milk! And many 
breakfasts can be started the night before. Mix up the dry
ingredients for muffins, or make yourself some ready made
pancake mix. 

2. Adopt a Routine

If you do the same thing in the same order every morning,
you'll find yourself in much less chaos! What do you need to
do every morning? Have a shower, get dressed, make breakfast?
What else? Decide what is the best order to do these things,
and make sure you do the most important ones first. I got in 
the horrible habit of reading the paper in the morning whenever
I saw an interesting headline, and then the school bus would 
be here and I hadn't made breakfast! Now that we homeschool
the temptation is even worse, because no clock is ticking
anywhere. Decide to do your "must dos" first, and leave
your "wants" until later.

3. Plan your Lunches

Here comes that planning thing again. But it does work! 
Figure out what your kids will actually eat in their lunches,
and then plan on the best way to make lunches. Kids, once 
they're 7 or 8, can be involved in this. You may still
need to make sandwiches (although they can probably manage
most), but they can easily throw the fruit, snacks, and 
drinks together. Put all the lunch ingredients in one 
shelf in your kitchen that your kids can reach, and give
them this task. They're more likely to pack things that 
won't end up in the garbage later!

4. Recruit the Kids

Lunches aren't the only thing kids can be responsible
for. Often those things that hold us up in the mornings
are things that kids "conveniently" forgot until the last
minute. The shoes they can't find. The hair clips that 
disappeared. The homework that isn't done. Make a list of
the things that your children need to be responsible for,
including personal grooming (like not losing their 
clothes!), permission slips, homework, equipment for 
after school lessons, and anything else that you
often run into trouble over. Put this list on your
fridge, and have the children check it every night
before dinner to make sure everything's ready to go 
in the morning.

You can also institute age-appropriate consequences
if children fail to have these things ready. (I'll
deal with consequences in my next newsletter!). Remember,
the more you make your children responsible for, the more
they learn that they are not the center of the universe,
ready to be catered to. They need to be productive, 
responsible people, too. This lesson will help them be
less self-centered, less forgetful, and even less moody
as they grow up!

5. Be Organized!

Finally, mornings always run more smoothly if the 
laundry's done, if winter hats and coats are easy to find,
in other words, if the house is organized. I have all
kinds of tips for this on my website, and in my new 
book, To Love, Honor and Vacuum. Find out more here.

From the October 2003 edition of To Love, Honor and Vacuum newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

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