Every weekday morning it’s the same thing.
I get up at 7:15. We have to be out of the house by 8:30 in order to be at school by 8:45. I have 75 minutes to prepare breakfast, brush my teeth, shower, dress, pack lunches, help boys with their uniforms, check for any school forms/library books/excursion notes that need signing, change a nappy, dress a toddler, do a rapid-fire pick-up-stuff-off-the-floor and kitchen bench wipe down and find my keys before leaving the house. Surely it’s do-able with minimal stress and chaos?
Well, it would be if something weird didn’t happen to the time in this every day morning scenario.
It starts off going reasonably slowly, so that between 7:15 and 7:30 five breakfasts are calmly prepared and being happily and leisurely consumed. 7:30-7:45 is usually ample time to prepare and pack satisfactory school lunches. That leaves time before 8am to shower and dress myself before helping the boys with their uniforms and shoes and nappies.
This is where something weird happens to the passage of time because the 30 minutes between 8 and 8:30am disappear in a void. Suddenly I am frantic and insanely chanting “Where are my keys?” whilst filling drink bottles and lacing shoes and changing a nappy and putting on toddler sandals and stepping on Lego and shouting at the boys to get their school bags and remembering that I haven’t brushed my teeth or my hair yet and somebody needs $5 for a school excursion and I need $8 for my netball game and I know there’s only 85c in my purse and no petrol in the car and there’s snacks needed for creche and a spare nappy and where is that damn library book and why can I never find my friggin keys and finally, somehow, we trip and tumble out of the front door amid a chorus of complaints about walking (which actually seems quicker than the car when car seats and seat belts are factored in) and get to school just in time for the final morning bell and like so many natural disasters within 5 minutes it’s all over: a frantic and unbelievable amount of effort just to make it to school on time.
Some must casually stroll through their morning requirements and exit in a cloud-like state of organised calm: a whispered breeze of preparedness and control. Time works in their favour. I’m sure we could, if it weren’t for the disappearing 30 minutes that conspire to ensure that we invariably arrive at school less like a breeze than a tornado, with a trail of dirty dishes and open cereal packets and milk on the counter and strewn jocks and pyjamas and half eaten toast and cups and toys and forgotten show-and-tell and unflushed toilets in our wake.
Somewhere these lost conspiratorial minutes must be getting stored. Perhaps I’ll get them back when I’m 80.