A Morning at the McKays

Welcome to a morning at the McKay house. Like many households with three young children, the morning begins with a blaring alarm that inevitably screams hours before you expect it to. After three meetings with the snooze button, I don a robe and slippers and slowly plod towards the kids' room, avoiding all interaction with reflective surfaces of any kind, especially mirrors!

Tip-toeing into their room, I resist the urge to climb into bed with someone. Instead, I gently trying to convince my oldest to wake up without disturbing her younger brother or sister, which regularly results in a loud, primal morning roar that wakes up both brother and sister.

Now that the entire clan is roused, the breakfast chaos begins. At this point, I have every intention of providing a creative and nutritious meal. "Perhaps a spinach and mushroom fritatta with fresh fruit," I think. Opening the refrigerator, I recall the trip to the grocery store that didn't happen yesterday, or the day before. I grab the Cheerios.

While the kids are eating, I shuffle into the bathroom and try to make myself presentable. Cue: The McKay Family morning soundtrack:

Track 1: "STOP looking at ME!!"

This is Eden's morning anthem. Only she can harness the raw emotion of pure annoyance necessary to reflect the true meaning of the song. Careful observation has created a substantial amount of data to prove that this song will indeed play, whether or not someone is actually looking at her.

Track 2: "More Cerealllllllll Mommmm!"

Rocco belts this one out with reckless abandon, reminiscent of a young Mozart wildly guiding his orchestra. Interestingly, the longer I take, the more animated he becomes, carving each word with sharp little verbal knives. If the cereal does not come, he transitions into an unforgettable performance of "MOMMY MOMMYYYYY" but I try to save that special song for the days when my mental stability is seriously in question. Oddly enough, so does he.

Track 3: "I spilled...I SPILLED!"

Our littlest songbird, Gioia, wraps up the performance with this beautiful melody, which really shows off her range. It starts off whisper soft, as if just throwing the words out into the universe will magically usher in a uniformed cleaning crew. When the cleaning crew fails to arrive, our little princess reaches into the depths of her soul and wrangles up super-human bravado to howl the second verse. Still no cleaning crew, but I emerge from the bathroom prepared to mop up an entire bowl of milk and the remnants of soggy Cheerios.

Then...silence. My three children exchange perplexed stares that say, "what do we do now?" From here, the morning is dictated by the day's planned events (school, play date, park, errands), but whatever path the family takes, I somehow end up glancing at the clock to realize it's 11am and I am still recovering/cleaning/dressing/planning. Off to school to pick up Eden and the afternoon chaos unfolds.....