Our morning drill.

Every weekday morning our house operates like a fire drill lasting about 45 minutes until Ava gets in the car and is on her way to school.  It's horrible, and probably mostly my fault.  I can not get up in the mornings, I NEVER could.  High school, college, JOBS (I did have a few even though that life feels so long-gone), I raced around as fast as I could to get out the door with seconds to spare.  And now it's happening again. 

All of us like to sleep in, so every morning I have to wake up Ava at 7:10 for her to come downstairs and have her milk.  She is STILL drinking milk from a sippy cup every morning while she watches a TV show...it's her coffee...she has to have it.  She whines and fusses from the time I wake her, through her milk and show and often right up until 7:55 when she needs to be getting her coat and shoes on.  I have to keep her moving along...'go to the bathroom, come get dressed, come get your hair fixed, are you going to have breakfast?'...AHHHH.  If I could only get up 15 minutes earlier there would not be such a push in the a.m....but she would probably be just as grumpy. 

Every once in a while things roll along smoothly, but always fall apart when it's time to dress.  Ava has so many clothing issues.  Right now she will ONLY wear leggings.  No jeans, corduroys, 'cozy' pants, yoga pants, it has to be leggings. However, if the leggings are just a tad too long and leave wrinkles around the ankles it's MELTDOWN time...but of course we don't have extra time for this.  Up until yesterday (after I went out to Target and bought her 20 new pairs of thin, low, ankle socks) she refused to wear socks too.  30 degrees outside, it didn't matter, no socks.  We would put them on in the morning and they would be too long, too think, too big, too itchy.  At least with tops, I have that down.  Long sleeve, lightweight cotton, and no turtlenecks!  Wish the rest of the outfit would be that simple.  The funny thing is at this age, she doesn't care what the outfit actually looks like on, or what color it is, who makes it, it's all about the feel.  It can only get worse from here, right?

At some point E gets up so he can drive Ava to school, and Cameron often makes his appearance around 7:30.  He comes down in a soaking wet diaper, usually refuses to let me change him for the first 30 minutes, and demands a fruit bar, orange juice, and Mickey!  And nobody should speak to him  until he eats or he hollers 'STOP IT'.  Maybe if everyone was a little cheerier in the morning I could get up a bit earlier...or maybe not.