Morning Rhythm

Rhythm... I must admit that this is a bit of a struggle for me. I'm not sure why, I've always thrived on routines and predictability. But, as a mother, I find it difficult to make it come together. Let's be real, children, while they need predictability, predictable they are not! And, more than that, I never know what I should add, should it be a regular thing, oh, and lets not forget the mountain of work that constantly calls me away. Where does that fit in? I'm really not sure... yet. But I'm working on it.
I think I have mentioned here that we begin our first home school year in September (eek! less than a week away!), so I'm really feeling like this is something I've got to get and get it now! Linking up with Nichole today, I'm going to show you where we are, so far.My day starts at, ideally, 5:30 am. But River won't always let me leave the bed then or perhaps I didn't get to bed like I should have the night before and so we'll say, anywhere from 5:30-7. This is the time I really need to have, a little alone time, time to drink a cup of coffee, do a little blogging, catch up on emails. Because, yet again ideally, I would then close the laptop and not touch it again til at least nap time. But I still haven't figured out how to get all I need done here and stay caught up on everything in that time frame. Another something I really need to figure out, pronto.
Anyway, at 7:00 if the girls haven't already woken up, I go into their room and gently wake them, singing, pulling down the covers and generally they wake cheerfully, singing along. We use this one for waking and greeting the morning. Very familiar but with a twist, insisted upon by the girls.
Good morning dear earth
Good morning dear sun
Good morning to the rocks, and the flowers, every one
Good morning to the busy bees and the little bunnies and the dragons and the birds in the trees
Good morning to you and good morning to me

At this point, I am dressed so I will attempt to smoothly get the girls dressed and into the bathroom. Realistically, though, the girls become distracted by toys or books right away and there is nothing in their closet they will agree to wear or Kaiya is going to lie in bed and refuse to dress (because 6 is the new 16, apparently). And while all of this is going on I am swiftly making everyone's bed, on Monday changing the sheets. If I am lucky they're ready to head into the bathroom by the time I am done.
If not (more often than not) I will spend another 10-15 minutes attempting to find clothes that make everyone happy and convincing Kaiya to get dressed, which isn't easy. This isn't fun, it's actually a stressful way to begin the morning, arguing with and cajoling her, and if you have some advice for me on this one, I would love to hear it.
Eventually we are off into the bathroom for teeth brushing and hair combing. We sing my little teeth brushing song (to the tune of Merry Old Land of Oz, from The Wizard of Oz).
Brush, brush, brush
Brush brush, brush
Brush all your little teeth
Clean, clean, clean
Clean them good
So you don't get cavities

This generally goes pretty smoothly. And, yes, we brush before we eat. I just have to do this, always have. I can't stand morning mouth and I can't eat with it, either.
Next up, we head outside to care for the animals. I wrote all about that here last week. As I said, our rule is, people don't eat before the animals are cared for. It is important to me to teach the children that our responsibility to our animals is very important.
Once we are back in, it's time for our own breakfast. Generally we have eggs and toast one morning, and oatmeal the next. Occasionally we will change it up with muffins or biscuits or something special. But we usually reserve those things for the weekend. Some mornings the girls will help me, otherwise they play or read til it's ready.

Mornings aren't that big of a deal for me, at least not this getting ready for the day part. It's everything that comes after that stumps me. I'll get more into that next week maybe. Until then, enjoy some other posts on rhythm, linked up on Nichole's beautiful blog.