New Routine

We’re trying to get back into the swing of school and morning routines and all that entails. It’s been rough. Before Christmas break, the girls needed to be downstairs by 6:30 to eat breakfast so we could finish tooth brushing, hair brushing, getting shoes and coats on and be out the door by 7:10 so I could take them to the bus stop.

Tom and I decided over Christmas that it would make more sense, with all the snow we’ve gotten and may still get, for the girls to get on the bus at home, which occurs at 6:40 each morning. This means they need to be downstairs, dressed by 6:00 for breakfast.

Which means they need to get up at 5:45, which just seems mean to me. But then I’m not a morning person like they are. Olivia needs a little extra time to sit in front of a space heater each morning before being expected to get dressed and be ready to focus on eating.

Alyssa is a little more like her mother, she needs people to just not look at her or talk to her first thing in the morning.

In an effort to make the mornings a little easier, Alyssa and I pack lunches in the evening. It makes more sense to take ten minutes (if that) and have everything ready than to be running around trying to get it all done in the morning when everyone is groggy, grouchy and rushed.

Once the girls are on the bus, I have about forty minutes before I have to leave for work. This is weird. Tom and I are never, okay, rarely, in the house without at least one of the girls. So for the past week we’ve been sort of just figuring out how to be alone with each other each morning.

Alyssa loves being the first one on the bus each morning. She’s been begging to switch to this routine for months. She likes the extra time with her friends on the bus and just likes being first.

Olivia? Well, she’s just sort of a go with the flow kind of gal. She’s all, “Oh, so we’re getting on the bus at home, forty minutes before we did at the bus stop? Mmm, kay. Can I have my handcuffs back? Cops Reloaded is starting and I might miss an arrest.”

We’re still working out the kinks but so far, the bus has not yet had to sit in front of our house while we race around putting shoes and coats on. That’s something.