8 Habits To Start Your Day Right (Except If You’re A Parent And This Article Starts Your Day Wrong)
Guaranteed ways to just get through another day of parenting.
globalmoments | Canva Think back to the last time your alarm blared, and you woke feeling excited to start your day. If you're like most, it’s been a while, and that's okay. What you're missing is a failsafe set of habits. Taking charge of your morning ritual with a healthy dose of humor guarantees getting into an optimal state of mind and body. And it's life-changing.
Here are 8 habits to start your day right, unless you're a parent and this article starts your day wrong:
1. Wake up early
Get ahead of the day by rising before the sun. As the saying goes, “The early bird catches the worm.” The early bird wakes every day at exactly 4:53 am, and sings a song of :
“Mom. Dad. MAMA! DADDY! MOOOOOMMY! DADADAAA!” then pounces on the worm, claws at the worm’s face, drags the worm out of bed, and demands the worm makes breakfast of Cocoa Krispies.
2. Drink a hot beverage
Warm up with a coffee or tea. It’s okay if you don’t finish — stay positive and remember the cup is half full! Or it’s half empty if your child ruins their chances of a sibling by knocking the scolding liquid on your crotch.
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3. Read a book
Escape your reality by delving into some text. Maybe you’re into thrillers, travel mags, or biographies. Or maybe your child is into “Where’s Spot?” so read that eighty-seven times.
4. Enage in exercise
Fire up your endorphins with a morning workout. HIIT sessions are great if you have limited time.
Another efficient heart rate raiser is a HIIT session: run away from your child as they try to hit you because you asked them to help mop up their spilled Cocoa Krispies instead of rolling around in them making cereal angels.
5. Do a puzzle
Get those cerebral juices flowing with a brain teaser. One hundred points if it takes you fewer than one hundred guesses to decipher whatever it is your child is urgently requesting as they scream for “SHTBUPPITUASFUG!”
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6. Eat breakfast
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Enjoy a full serving of your favorite healthy morning meal of nothing. Tell yourself you’re intermittent fasting out of choice and not because you have no time for proper sustenance due to putting on an extra washing load of pajamas saturated in Cocoa Krispies.
7. Meditate
Center yourself before you leave for work. Retreat to a quiet spot — perhaps lock yourself in the bathroom, curl into a ball, and repeat “I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.” Stand up, wash away your tears, and re-enter the chaos as you remember you’re working from home today.
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8. Get a good night’s sleep
A great morning starts the night before. So go to bed early.
Or, as early as possible after you hold your child’s hand as it takes them over an hour to drift off to sleep, commando crawl out of their room, clean the kitchen while eating your child’s unfinished chicken nuggets, tidy your child’s toys from every room in the house, pack away the lukewarm groceries you left in the car all day, put on a load of washing, prep your dinner, realize the ingredients were spoiled from being left in the car all day, cook yourself some chicken nuggets (insert long inhale here.)
Re-settle your child who just woke, hold your breath and tiptoe out of their room, do a silent victory dance because it only took twenty-nine minutes to get them back to sleep, scoff your cold chicken nuggets, clean the kitchen again, plan the logistics of your child’s day tomorrow, hang out the washing, attempt to get rid of a month old spaghetti stain on the wall, sneak back into your child’s room and just smile and watch them for a bit (insert even longer inhale here.)
Trip over a teddy bear as you attempt to creep out of your child’s room, pray to any and all gods that your child doesn’t wake as you pick yourself off the floor, comfort your child and tell them it was just you that fell over and wasn’t the Big Bad Wolf come to eat them, fall asleep cuddling your child, wake wondering how long you dozed off for, slink off your child’s bed and onto the floor, slither out of your child’s room, reply to some emails, get in the shower, drench the house as you dash naked to your child’s room because you thought you heard them calling for you, finish your shower, dry the wet floors, and maybe have another go at that spaghetti stain.
And fall asleep on the couch as you treat yourself to some “me time” by watching videos of your child as you eat dessert of a single Cocoa Krispie you found under the couch. Then, do it all over again tomorrow.
Angus Duffin is a humor writer with appearances in McSweeney’s, Points in Case, Weekly Humorist, Slackjaw, and elsewhere.