In an hour

7.50am - wake up with a start, and remember that I forgot to do an online Tesco shop yesterday.

7.51am - with no bread and fruit in the house, I lie there and worry about what I am going to give the kids for breakfast, and what I can fashion together for Betty's lunch box, without pre-school staff thinking I am a neglectful mother.

8.00am - still in bed, I brace myself for my little darlings to start bellowing 'IS IT MOOOOOORRNING?' in unison over and over until I go to them. 

8.04am - 'IS IT MOOOOOOOORNING?' jolts me from my thoughts of Shreddies, the horrors of training pants, and rusty lunch boxes.

8.05am - unleash the children from their bedroom and put on CBeebies

8.07am - go into kitchen, put kettle on, wash-up, warm up their milk, make tea, prepare breakfast, make Betty's lunch, sweep floor, wipe surfaces/kitchen table.

8.20am - while the kids breakfast on breadsticks and raisins, I choose their outfits - preferred clothing is either in the wash, very creased, or can't be found.

8.25am - start the getting-dressed battle.  Dolly cries because she wants to wear her pyjamas all day and Betty tells me that the dress/leggings combo I have picked out don't work together.  Betty then goes into meltdown when I accidently brush her cheek, while doing her hair. 

8.32am - I tell them not to make each other cry while I go into the bathroom, have a 30 second shower, spray some Batiste (dry shampoo) onto my hair and slap some Nivea on.

8.34am - I get dressed, and search for my shoes and my sunglasses (needed to help hide my white powdery hair).  Dolly has hidden them again, and refuses to tell me where they are.  [She will produce them just before bedtime later, true to form]

8.37am - search for girls bags, coats and shoes, and yell a lot.

8.39am - put some washing on, and look for a consent form and some money for a pre-school trip that afternoon.

8.40am - have three gulps of cold tea, and sweep up the raisins from the floor.

8.41am - try to get kids' coats on, and wipe faces.

8.43am - with breakfast unfinished I tell them to eat it in the car.  I break it to Betty that what she is eating for breakfast is pretty much what she will be having for lunch (with the addition of some olives and a yoghurt).

8.44am - leave the house, kids coats under arm, and me wearing Crocs because I can't find my shoes (no standards), and Betty and Dolly wearing Crocs (because I don't have time to do up shoe laces/buckles, and can't find their shoes anyway).

8.45am - wait while Dolly (at her angry insistence) painstakingly clambers up into her carseat, gets legs caught in the straps, spills her breakfast all over car, loses a Croc etc. 

8.47am - with all of us strapped in and engine going, Betty tells me her feet are cold and could she have some socks.

8.49am - I return to the car with the socks, and have to break up a fight over a plastic horse.  Dolly tells me she needs a wee and I tell her to just do it in her pull-up nappy.  Betty implies that I am a bad mother for not letting Dolly use the toilet. I ignore her.

8.50am - we pull out of our driveway onto main road and Betty informs me her bag with lunch in is still on the porch step.