This morning was a very horrible, hectic morning. My husband and I are really at the end of our individual ropes as to how to handle our children - specifically, Little J, our 4-year-old bundle of joy - and get out of the house in a timely fashion.

I have a couple of expectations of my children in the morning:

• they will eat breakfast



• they will get dressed, including shoes and socks



• they will do these things on their own, with minimal reminders.

If teeth and hair get brushed, too, this is a bonus.

Big J manages it. Little J doesn't.

The biggest problem in our scenario is that Big J will be late to school if we don't get out of the house on time. He is motivated. Little J could care less. There is no (natural) consequence to being late for school for him. He gets plenty of unnatural consequences for dragging us down, but until the ADHD meds kick in they don't mean a thing.

Sigh.

If I feed Little J his breakfast, took him upstairs and dressed him down to his shoes and socks we would have at least 45 minutes to spare in the morning. I get them up about 50 minutes before we have to leave. But Little J is almost 4 1/2. 4 1/2 year olds should be able to do those things independently. Some mornings he does. Many mornings he doesn't. He takes way too long to eat breakfast, screaming and talking and hitting his brother the whole time - then he takes way too long to get dressed. Getting dressed before breakfast, while it sounds like a good idea, invariably ends up in him needing an entirely new outfit by the time he's done.

I need to be more calm about it. This is one way to feel better about it. I need to find the zen of the crazy morning.

Ooooooohhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmm.

My husband says we need to do stuff like take away television in the afternoon for mornings he dawdles. He lost his Halloween candy today. All of it. I'm open to different consequences, but honestly, I don't think it will have any bearing on the way he acts.

I am open to suggestions. And yes, I've tried spanking. It actually works...but I would like to not spank him any more. And I've examined our morning "systems." There's nothing wrong there. What I need to do and they need to do can easily fit in that 50 minute window. I don't feel rushed...until the littlest one won't work within our system.

What makes me most nervous is that hopefully very soon I will have a job - which will complicate things and make it more important that everything run smoothly. And we have a serious bump in that morning road. His name is Little J.

Here are some links to streamlining morning routines:

http://www.babyzone.com/momtomom/stories.asp?mcid=128

http://www.ideamarketers.com/library/article.cfm?articleid=15499&from=PROFILE

http://www.ehow.com/how_136674_streamline-morning-routine.html

There's some good advice in those links...but I don't think they pertain to me...