How Do You Start Your Day? – Motherhood Fully Engaged Day 3

I am not a morning person. Kudos to you who are! But that is not me.  I come alive at night around 11:00 PM to get creative, get work done, and enjoy the quiet.  Unfortunately, life with kids doesn’t exactly lend itself well to night owls, especially with a 5th graderwho needs to be at school by 8:30 and baby who wakes up around 5:00 AM for inexplicable reasons.  Can we talk about this some time?  5 AM?!?!!  Why, God?  Why???

^{(Bonus points if you just read that in your best Joey voice…)}

Mornings at our house primarily consist of trying not to be too late.  We have a general routine to keep the chaos from getting out of control, but last minute frantic dashes are common and grumpy, cranky exchanges are, too.

Mornings set the tone for the entire day. When Gabe was a preschooler, this didn’t seem so critical.  If our morning didn’t go well, we’d start over again after naps.  But now that I send him out into the world for the bulk of his day, I hate sending him into school knowing that his first hour or two has been full of arguments, rushing, and anxiety.

Today, we started the day differently. As soon as everyone was up and as soon as I’d found my wits (i.e. after I finished my giant mug of coffee), I hugged and kissed each of my children right away.  Like, I purposefully went and found them and gave them a lingering hug and a kiss on the tops of their heads.  I have to be honest–they looked at me weird.  This was not normal and they knew it.

The rest of the day was pretty scattered.  I was anxious about a zillion things, we were off our game, and Jude hollered and yanged more than normal.  But it comforted me to remember that even though our day wasn’t the greatest, we’d started it well.

How do you start your day? How could you intentionally engage with your kids first thing?