... good morning, good morning....

Monday morning it was my turn to get the girls ready for daycare and drop them off. Full disclosure: I rarely have to do this. I rarely have to pick them up either. M takes the brunt of the impact on this front, which I very aware of and alternately feel guilty about and grateful for.

Sometime in May

But Monday M went in early, so I stepped in.

Which means I got up early to try and get ready before they were in the way. And once they woke up I spent a lot of time trying to get them to eat, trying to convince them to get dressed, telling them that they CANNOT play with horses/baby dolls/books because we need to get out the door by 8.15a. All while getting ready myself.

How this goes depends on how well everyone slept, what they're feeling like, what they've got that might distract them. This morning there were horses (as usual) and oatmeal (which they sometimes eat and sometimes reject) and toast and showers and....

K didn't want to eat. L ate some oatmeal. I made a piece of toast ("Do either of you want some toast? K? L?" "I'm Black Beauty, Dada!!" "Toast! Do you want toast Black Beauty?" "You're P.J.!!"). I started to eat my toast. L wanted toast. I made her a piece of toast ("K, do you want some toast? K?! K!?!!" "No! I said no!!"). I gave L her piece of toast and started eating the second piece I'd put in, figuring K would want some. K decided she wanted some. ("You're kidding, right?" "No, I'm hungry.") I made another piece of toast ("L, do you want more toast?" "No Dada, I'm Black Beauty!" "Black Beauty, do you want more toast? More oat-toast? More horse-toast?" "Um.... no thank you!") and gave it to K who ate about 1/2 of it.

I decided I needed to take my shower, whether or not they'd eaten/dressed/were ready to go. So I went upstairs and undressed and got in and was shampooing up and K appeared, still in her jammies.

K: Can I get in Daddy?
me: Huh?
K: Can I get into the shower?
me (are you kidding me?!?): Uh, no K.
K: Why not?
me (yeah, why not?): Ok, sure. (opening the door for her to come in).

She came in and stood in her pajamas in the spray of the shower.

L caught wind of what was going on and she joined us. What's another soggy girl when you've already got one?

So there we were, me trying to actually wash, K&L trying to avoid doing all the things they ought to have been doing. And I turned off the water when I was done, and L got cold and we stripped her and dried her and I sent her to pick out some clothes. K next. And then I was able to dry and get dressed myself.

And you know what, it was the twist they needed to go ahead and get dressed.

It didn't make any sense, but it was somehow the right thing to do. I ended up with some soggy jammies, but I also ended up with 2 dressed-and-ready-to-go girls. And I managed to drop them off and I made the 9.15a water taxi.

Daddy Lesson: Flexibility is king. You have to be willing to shower outside the box!