Morning rules

I have been remiss this week with posting. Today is the first day that I've felt remotely human in a week though. My nose is still a bit runny and there are the occasional bouts of awful hacking, but overall I'm doing much better. Hopefully tomorrow, I will feel like a whole new person.


School started a few weeks ago and I have to tell you that the adjustment has not been easy. My lovely, cheerful little boy has turned morose and scowly. He bopped off for his first day, only to discover that NONE of his friends from last year are in his class. They do switch around a little bit, so Jack wound up in one class, but no one else.

This is a very social little kid. He LOVES having friends, but the making of them in a sometimes hostile environment isn't easy. There was the new bully to contend with (which is apparently no longer a factor), a new set of teachers, and a new set of expectations. ZBoy was not a happy child.

No where did this show up more than in our mornings, which were rushed, stressful, and usually wound up with someone yelling or crying on the way to school.

Since it's usually just me and ZBoy in the mornings, and since I'm apparently the grownup, I had to make some changes.

I picked him up from school and took him out for an ice cream and we talked about how awful our mornings have been and how we might change them. We both came up with ideas, debated their merits and agreed to some of them. He asked me write up a contract between him and me for how we would deal with our mornings - what is expected from each of us.

This is what we came up with:


We both signed it and it's hanging on the wall in our kitchen.

And ever since, our mornings have been just lovely. There's no screaming, no rushing - everything gets taken care of and nobody is late.

Best contract I ever signed.