Morning Madness

I know every mother across America does it too but getting everybody out the door by 8:10 is super challenging to me, especially to try and do it without being a drill sergeant. 4 & 5 year olds do not share my sense of urgency...at all. I hate rushing them through breakfast when we've had 5 years of hanging out at the breakfast table for an hour & now we've got at most 30. I hate having to interrupt Lacy when she's talking to herself in the mirror for 10 minutes instead of brushing her teeth. And when I tell her, it's time to get shoes on, she tells me, "But I haven't brushed my teeth yet" And this morning when they're supposed to be brushing their teeth, I found them in my closet. Lily, almost naked with some towels as blankets on the floor because she said she was cold and Lacy just digging through my craft supplies for absolutely no reason. It's so hard for me to patient. I've tried to make a game out of it. I've told them that we've been turtles for a long time in the morning and now we need to be faster. They picked Kangaroos as the animal they wanted to be like, so there are many mornings when I can be heard saying,
"WE ARE KANGAROOS, WE ARE NOT TURTLES, GO GO GO GO!"