Today was the big day. The day we had been planning for since school broke up at the end of June. Back To School Day, Sunday 28th August. I’ve organised everything, planned for every eventuality and blogged about it for weeks. But life had other plans, and we were… late!
You see, despite our early bedtime last night, a final check that everything was ready and (I admit it), a little smile to myself for a job well done… the alarm didn’t go off this morning. I woke up at 6.30am, 25 minutes before we had to leave the house. 1.5 hours later than I usually wake up. Yikes!
In my defence, there is a lot going on right now. I am recovering from a severe bout of bronchitis and tonsillitis (a souvenir from our holiday in Scotland), Mr 5 is shaking off a cold and our second washing machine in a week exploded last night, flooding the laundry room again. On top of that, I received distressing news about a dear family member last night, so my thoughts were distracted. I should have put my phone on charge overnight but I went to bed without giving it a second thought – my mind was elsewhere.
Back to this morning… I woke Mr 5 up and hurriedly washed and dressed him, then showered and dressed myself. And surprisingly with 5 minutes in hand, we were ready. Thank goodness for organisation!
Because I organised everything last night, the packed lunch was ready, uniform laid out, shoes polished and bag packed. All I had to do was throw breakfast into a box (for an in-the-car picnic that I sold to Mr 5 as a new family tradition for the first day of school!), and we were good to go.
I must admit, the old me would have been running around like a headless chicken squawking “Teeth! Shoes! Lunch!” at anyone who would listen. I would have despaired that I was a rubbish mother, the school were crazy to have given us a place at all, and that we might as well give up and move back home to the UK. Instead, we had a bit of a giggle about Mummy supposedly being “More Organised”, put on our smiles and worked as a team to get out of the door in time. Without our night-before organising, we would have been in a right old pickle, but thanks to the traffic being on our side, we even made it to school 20 minutes early.
Thank goodness for the night-before routine! Although tonight I have set the alarm on three different devices, just to be sure. Good night!
This story just goes to prove that being prepared is the best organizing strategy of all!
I have never been so relieved to have been organised the night before! But isn’t it ironic that I spent so long advising others how to be organised on the first day of school… and then nearly blew it myself! So funny looking back, but it wasn’t at the time!!
That is my worst nightmare!!!! Well done to you and your little Mr 5 who, above it all, even managed to get to school early!
Mine too – I just could not believe the time when I first woke up! Thank goodness for our night-before routine!
I’m glad you and your little one managed to take on the challenge with a smile! Things like this always happen when I feel over confident, but you just have to laugh about it and take it in your stride! Hope your little man had a great first day back at school!
We had a great week, thanks Zeyna. Smiles all round!
Tomorrow’s our first day back at school, hoping for the best.
I agree, getting things prepared the night before helps a lot.
I hope your first days back went smoothly. Have a great weekend – we’ve all deserved it this week!