School days

I know school days are crazy for all moms. I just wonder if they're the same kind of crazy as ours. Do you ever wonder if your crazies are the same as other people's?

I start my mornings very early, to give myself time to prepare for the messiness ahead. I want to be peaceful and calm.  I get up a good hour and a half before my daughter so I can relax, drink coffee, and watch the news. I want to know what the weather will be like so I can dress her appropriately. I want to know what's going on in the world. It makes our household chaos seem more ridiculous and less maddening.

When it comes time to wake Blue up, I do so gently, with kisses and kind words. I welcome her into the day. She generally starts with a smile, and tells me she loves me. That lasts about two seconds, until I tell her to get up, then she throws the covers back over her head and tells me to stop talking. I explain, daily, that it's time to get up for school and that we'll be late if she doesn't get up and get ready. She needs to get out of bed now. She refuses, and I have to pull the covers off and cajole her out of bed. This results in some screeching noises that only some weird animals should make.

She goes to the bathroom, then heads downstairs, where she plops down in my chair and insists on playing games on my phone. I tell her no, of course, which turns into, no, not until you're dressed. This gets her motivated, but then she hates the weather-ready clothes I've chosen for her. She shrieks again when the clothes go on, and tears them off. She insists that she hates them and won't wear them. I tell her to find her own clothes, and she refuses. She tells me to find some for her. I smack myself in the forehead. (I'm getting a callous in that spot from our daily exchanges.)

After several outfits, I finally find some clothes she's amenable to, and get them on her. At this point, I'm overwhelmed by the sense of victory, and I feel like I should be done, but I haven't even touched her waist-length blond hair yet, and that's where the biggest challenge lies. sigh.

So I regroup, and tell her it's time to do her hair.

She digs in her heels, balls up her fists, and screams.

I tell her she's not going anywhere without getting her hair done. She tries to bargain. "Just don't do my hair today, mom. You can do it tomorrow instead." I don't know why she does this. It never works. But she tries every day. Then she says, "Fine, I'm not going to school."

"Of course you're going to school," I say.

I finally cave and give her my phone to play with while I brush her hair, but that doesn't keep her from screaming throughout the entire exercise as though I'm pulling out her toenails one by one with pliers. She even goes so far as to scream, "Help me, Daddy! Help me!" She tries to run a couple times, at least, during this exercise. She doesn't succeed because I've got a hold of her hair. But finally, I get all her hair combed, and braided for school.

Then, she has to get her shoes and socks on, but by this point, she's so uncooperative that it's nearly impossible to get them on, and it usually takes both Daddy AND me to get them on her.

At this point, we're nearly late for school, despite how early I woke her up, and we grab her backpack and coat and run out the door.

I get back from taking her to school with a sigh of relief. Seven hours before her temper comes home. lol

* I should mention that she doesn't typically act like this in the evenings much anymore, and that there are mornings that she doesn't act like this either, but not most.