Morning Parenting

I have come to the conclusion that my parenting before coffee is sub par at best.  I am not a morning person, and attempting to even speak is sometimes taxing the first hour I'm awake.  Handling two cranky, hungry children the second I exit the warmth of my bed at 6:30am makes me want to burst into flames.

And yes, I know, 6:30am is significantly later than many children wake up.  I know many of you are up at 5am every single day.  I used to get up at 5am and it's a hideous, ungodly hour.  I know it could be worse.  But as previously established, I'm a whiny little bitch.  And this morning hustle pisses me off.

I've had this problem for as long as I can remember.  As a teenager, I used to sit in the corner on the kitchen floor nursing my silent contempt for the world while my dad made coffee.  My mom avoided me altogether.  No one spoke to me or looked me directly in the eye.  When the coffee was ready, my dad would hand a cup down to me- without speaking- and I would sit and drink.  Once I'd finished, I could face humans (kind of).  My freshman year in high school, I completely ruined a friendship because my friend of 4 years who generously gave me a ride to school every morning was incredibly bubbly in the morning.  She wanted to talk... a lot.  So my solution was to be a super-duper bitch until I stopped talking to her at all.  Brilliant plan, no?

I'm telling you, morning time before coffee is my kryptonite.

So now it comes to bite me in the ass again.  Kids are morning people.  They enjoy getting up early and demanding breakfast.  They want to run and jump and play LOUDLY at 6:30am.  They want me IMMEDIATELY upon opening their eyes.  All I want to do is sit in the corner of the kitchen floor until I finish my coffee, but now I don't even have time to make my coffee until they have breakfast in front of them.

I get up, pee if I'm lucky (and the piercing screams haven't started yet), get one kid out of bed, get the other kid out of bed, get the big one on the potty and into underwear (which are usually buried at the bottom of the basket of laundry I CANNOT SEEM TO FOLD), then get the little one into a new diaper.  Then we enter the kitchen and I plop the little one on the floor where he beelines for the drawer o' kid dishes and proceeds, for the 80 billionth time, to pull everything out onto the floor (where I trip on it).  The big one starts asking to watch TV and continues to ask every 5 seconds until breakfast is ready.  I begin to make the oatmeal the big one loves while he whines that he doesn't want "opameal" and then step on a tiny plastic fork.  I get milk cups out for both kids and the little one chugs half, then immediately starts to slam his on the floor until I take it away.  The big one returns to ask for TV again and proclaims, again, that he doesn't want "opameal."  The oatmeal is ready so I portion it out, then put the two little bowls in the freezer to cool off.  At this point, I attempt coffee making while trying to herd both kids over to the table where I can strap them down.  Bibs, cups, "opameal" and oh-my-god why can't all of this happen at a more reasonable hour?!?

Yes, it has been pointed out to me that I could get one of those fancy-schmancy coffee makers with a timer so that I can wake up to pre-fab coffee.  Or that I could get up before the little darlings so I could caffeinate myself and be a reasonable human being when they get up.  And those are both probably good ideas.

But then how could I WHINE like this?

Morning parenting blows.