Cranky Mama

I am cranky this morning and not being a very loving mama. I am not a morning person but I think I need to tweek my weekday schedule a bit or I am never going to get out of this rut. Along side the crankiness, several of the first items on my daily schedule consistently do not get done because I get up late (and cranky) and want to jump right into other stuff as to not fall behind. I recently came across blog post that got me thinking about making small changes for the better. Here are a few things I want to try that will hopefully allow me to accomplish two goals: be more productive and less cranky.

• make sure kitchen is clean (for the most part) before I go to bed. Trying to get breakfast on the table when the table is still nasty from dinner and there aren't any clean bowls or spoons is a typical early morning cause of stress. And so easily preventable.
• Get enough sleep. aka: stop staying up until 1am doing stuff that is not that important and can wait until the next day.
• Wake up before the kids. I have a harsh knee jerk reaction to the one responsible for waking me up in the morning, especially when I stayed up way too late. I would rather that thing be an alarm clock than one of my kids.
• Start an early morning routine of exercise, followed by prayer, shower, and coffee. All before the first tiny foot walks down the hall.

 I really don't want breakfast and other kid related "chores" to become . . . well . . . a  chore. We should be enjoying breakfast together, tidying up together, and then enjoying all of that free time together. I don't want to simply check "feed kids" off of a list of tasks that I need to complete before I can get to all the stuff I really want to be doing.

To be fare, I woke up this past Sunday with a bit of a cold so I haven't been feeling 100% but I think a proper routine would allow me to function better, even while under the weather.