A few whiles ago

Monday Morning:

Steve: ‘OK darlings, would you like to get dressed now? It’s time to get ready for preschool.’

Lara: ‘No! Don’t want to get dressed! I’m eating my bweakfast.’

Rhea: (Runs around the house in the opposite direction).

Steve: ‘Finish your breakfast quickly, Lara, it’s time to get dressed. Rhea, come here, darling, I need to get your clothes on.’

Rhea: (Still running around giggling. Meanwhile Lara has got distracted from her breakfast and is now playing with the doll’s house beside the dining room table.)

Steve: ‘Rhea, it’s time to get dressed, we’ll be late for pre-school. Lara, come here so I can get your clothes on.’

(Both girls take no notice).

Steve: ‘CAN YOU BLOODY GET YOUR CLOTHES ON! WHY DO I HAVE TO ASK YOU FIVE TIMES EVERY SINGLE MORNING! FUCKING HELL!’

A week later:

7am. We awake to the sight of Rhea presenting herself beside our bed, fully dressed, including shoes.

Rhea: ‘Can I have my lolly now for getting dressed?’

We give her one m & m and laugh with delight and triumph.

A week after that:

Steve: ‘Rhea, do you want a lolly? If you get yourself dressed you can have a lolly. Lara, do you want a lolly? You need to get dressed if you want one.’

(Rhea is still procrastinating. Lara is more interested in dipping her toast soldiers in to her boiled egg).

Steve: ‘It’s time to get dressed now. Who wants a lolly? Lara?’

(Lara eventually decides she’s finished her egg and will get herself dressed, but doesn’t like the clothes on offer and rifles through the drawer looking for something else. Rhea goes to the toilet).

Another week later:

Steve, who now gets up 15 minutes earlier on weekdays: ‘It’s time to get dressed. You remember what we said, if you don’t get dressed as soon as you get up then you’ll have to wear your school clothes to bed. Do you want to wear your school clothes to bed? No? OK then, let’s get dressed. If you get yourself dressed you can have a lolly.’

Steve now wrangles and bribes Rhea and Lara into getting dressed before breakfast. He uses the carrot (lolly) and the stick techniques (the threat of wearing school clothes to bed) to variable effect. You will notice that I don’t play a part in morning dressing. I’m making their breakfasts and lunches. Also I have nowhere near Steve’s patience levels.

When I asked the father of another girl at playschool last year how long it took to get his children (aged one and three) ready to get out of the house, he replied ‘about 15 minutes.’ (I would have said ‘an hour and a half on a good day’ – but perhaps we were counting different things. He certainly knew what he was talking about though; he was a stay-at-home dad).

Our challenges are partly the result of our unstructured early childhood morning routines because the girls were predominantly cared for at home until the age of three-and-a-half. We created a rod for our own backs. (It was almost worth it – those many mornings when none of us got dressed until 10am, and on the days when I went to work, we’d leave the house with the girls still in their pyjamas and mum or Di would dress them after we had left).

The challenge is also due to the girls’ differing concept of time. ‘When are we going? This week? Tomorrow this week?’ Obviously young children all have this different sense of time, where a few days can seem like an eternity and two weeks mean nothing at all, so rushing through our morning routine feels like we’re insisting on our adult time concepts when the girls live in their child’s time world, which is where they have a right to be.

I feel guilty about that. But I know that time and routine will sort it out.

I’m just trying to keep my sense of perspective and develop my patience on the journey.

Note: ‘A few whiles ago’ was a phrase that Lara once used to describe something that had happened in the past.