As a working mum, I have a specific time frame in the morning to get ready and out of the door in time to get the toddler to wherever he needs to be and me to the train station and into work on time. Up until a couple of weeks ago, he loved sleeping in and on most days it would be us having to wake him up five minutes before we were due to leave the house. This meant that I was able to get ready in peace, drink my tea in peace and have a quick look at my social media accounts in peace. The last two weeks have brought us a toddler who likes to wake up at any point between 4.30 and 6.30 and thus I am no longer able to get ready in peace. Initially, Justin's House on YouTube worked wonders, he would be hooked for a full 25 minutes.
This no longer works! I put it on for him and for a couple of minutes it has his attention but then he gets bored and wants to play. Which is fine if it didn't involve me while I'm trying to get ready! And so, here I share with you five things that took place just this morning while I was trying to get ready for work with a wide awake toddler.
1. I was standing in front of the mirror putting my mascara on and he decided that he wanted to join me. He didn't simply stand next to me. Oh no, he wanted to stand in between me and the mirror whilst balancing on my feet and jiggling around. As if putting mascara on very tired eyes after only roughly 5 hours sleep (did I mention he woke up at 4.30?), isn't difficult enough; doing it with a wriggling toddler on you is almost impossible! He likes to do this in the kitchen as well...usually when I'm cutting vegetables with a sharp knife!
2. I was standing with one leg raised and foot leaning on the bed, in order to put each of my legs into a pair of tights. Simple right? Not this time! The toddler took advantage of me being in this position to crawl under each leg that was raised, followed by again, again! He then proceeded to stroke my tights with his nails because he finds them a bit weird. Cue me having to tell him to stop before he rips my second to last pair!
3. He then decided it was time for us to play hide and seek. This is his new favourite game although he is hilariously bad at it! For this he hid under the duvet while I had to leave the room and go back in and find him. Again we had to this a few times before I had to tell him that I really needed to dry my hair.
4. Cue the next part...the hairdryer. He used to be scared of it and now he loves it. He likes to switch it on for me with the button, so every time I have to do the next section of hair, he has to switch the switch for me. He loves watching it lay on the bed blowing the sheets! Sometimes (thankfully not this morning as it would have made us even later), he likes to help me dry it!
5. Finally, and while this didn't actually disturb what I was doing at the time, he decided to pick an eye bogey from his eye, telling me 'mummy, I have an eye bogey' and then wiping it on my tights. Lush!
Other things that can happen during the getting ready process are:
- Him trying to use my eyelash curlers (he normally misses and does it on his nose!)
- Him jumping around on the bed leaving me on the verge of a heart attack when I'm not in a position to catch him
- Me trying to drink my tea and him clambering all over me!
- Tantrums because he wants daddy to come up from the bathroom
- Him hiding from daddy (usually under the covers or on the floor over the other side of the bed)
- Him trying to get me to go into his room and play with him
- Having to go into his room and see If the sun is awake on his Gro Clock (he gets confused and says, 'mummy, see if stars are awake')
So, there's an average morning of mummy trying to get ready for work! What do you have to combat with while you're trying to get ready and out of the door on time?! I'd love to hear.
This post was originally featured on Mummascribbles.