Mornings made easy

If you're at all like me, your house can be chaotic in the mornings. Let's face it. There are a LOT of things that need to be done in the morning...dressing kids, breakfast preparation, eating, feeding, lunch preparation, school items gathered, dressing myself for work, checking calendar for meetings and kids activities, changing littlest kids clothes because she's burped up a portion of her morning meal, the list goes on and on...

I've been working on making my mornings go smoother for a while now. Easier. Less stressful. Less yelling and crying (I'll let you determine who's doing the yelling and who may be crying) Shall I say, enjoyable, even?

While our mornings are still no where near completely stress-free, here are some tips that I've discovered through trial and error that actually work for us.

Make a big batch of a favorite breakfast on Sunday afternoon.  You'll only have to reheat in the mornings and that should take less time than cooking from scratch.  A favorite in our household is what Kellen has deemed "Dad's morning mess".  It's a combination of scrambled eggs, cut up tator tots, and ham (simply lunch meat) that's been pan fried and cut up into squares.  Thankfully, Matt makes wonderful breakfasts, so the preparation for this concoction is all his doing.  He cooks it all up, mixes it into a corningware bowl and into the refrigerator it goes. We spoon it out and warm it up each morning for the kids and I make myself breakfast burritos with it (just add tortillos and cheese and it's oh-so-yummy!).  This breakfast dish normally lasts all week long.  Add some fruit and a glass of milk and you have a wonderfully balanced breakfast.

Lay out clothes for the week.  Kellen is old enough to do this himself, and has for at least a year or so. We have a hanging organizational bin in his closet and the bottom five sections are the (school) days of the week. He lays out clothes for school and any extracurricular activities in each of the daily bins so that he's ready for the week.  For example, his Taekwondo lesson is every Wednesday, so that outfit is in the Wednesday bin along with his clothes to wear to school.  When he gets dressed on Wednesdays, seeing the outfit reminds him to put it in his backpack for the day.  We don't have a similar set up with Tatum in her closet, but can set out clothes for a week or pick out her outfit the night before and place it in her closet.  This saves on arguments in the morning about what to wear, and ensures that all necessary clothing is there - no running around for a pair of socks that are in the washing machine or dryer, etc.  Now, if I would only jump on the weekly clothes planning bandwagon, getting myself dressed would be quite a bit easier as well!

Bathe the kids at night. Baths can be time consuming, so getting them done in the evenings will allow for quicker getting ready in the mornings.  Unless there is a nighttime accident, there shouldn't be a reason or need to bathe or shower them off in the mornings.

Make the kids get dressed before eating breakfast.  You can walk out of the house and take them to school/day care if they're hungry, but not if they aren't dressed.  If dawdling is a problem, this natural consequence should nip that in the bud after a few days. And we all know that the kids won't starve or having lasting damage from not getting breakfast a couple of times because of their choices, right?

Make a launch pad. Dictate a place, preferably by the door, where you can place things that are needed for the kids and yourself for your day. Hang backpacks, purses, coats, lunch bags, etc in your launch pad in the mornings and you'll have easy access to them when you're walking out the door.  Even better, be sure that things (non-perishables) are there the night before.

Make lunches the night before. Have a kid that goes to a day care where their lunch can be heated up? Great...pack their lunch when you're cleaning up from dinner with some of the leftovers.  Add anything extra that needs to be added to round out it out and viola', lunch is ready to throw in the lunch bag for the next day.  This principle applies to grown-ups, too!  (Grown-ups, as an added bonus, you'll end up saving money by eating out less often for lunch during the week!)

Get up a few minutes earlier than your kids. This one can be tough, especially if you're a night owl. But I've found that getting up even 15 minutes before the kids, and taking that quiet(er) time for myself to grab my shower and begin getting ready helps me to get a small jump start on making the mornings go smoothly.  Added bonus for those of you who can get your workout and/or quiet time in during this time as well!

Try some, try all...I'm not promising miracles, just a slighly smoother start to your day. Care to share your tried-and-true morning tips?