I’ve called it the “Iron Mom Competition” in past blogs. That race in the morning to get all 5 kids out the door … fed….washed….dressed and all on time. You start the morning with a smile and a gentle “good morning honey” and by the end of the race you find yourself hollering to the one who left their lunch, screaming at the dog for being in the kitchen and realizing you have driven two of them to school in your pajamas with your hair standing straight up.

My hat is off to each of my fellow “Iron Moms”. The Moms who pack the lunches, answer 1,001 questions in an 8 minute timeframe, pour the milk, butter the bread, feed the pets, start a load of wash, braid the hair, zip the backpacks, sign the “HAVE TO BE SIGNED TODAY” school forms and make sure they all get to their schools or on their bus at the right time.

Once it is all over, I find myself breathing like a 24 year old who has finished the Iron Man competition. I stand at the window in the kitchen with my now chilled cup of coffee … wondering if I have forgotten anything, is anyone still in bed, did everyone get a lunch and is homeschooling an option?

Hats off to each of you Moms that do this 5 days a week without running away to a far away island (I know you’ve thought about it too!). Everyone tells me to “enjoy every minute, they go by sooo fast!”. Really? Enjoy the morning chaos?! Enjoy everyone shouting at each other? Enjoy realizing that a book report is due that morning and he hasn’t started it? Enjoy 1 lost shoe, 1 5th grader who is refusing to go to school anymore and 2 teenagers who snarl when they speak to each other over a bagel?

Hmmm. I will bet that I won’t miss mornings when they are gone. As I stand at my kitchen window, I think about a day when I come downstairs to a pot of coffee and enjoy it HOT, a day when I listen to the news and weather and not out of fear of a snow day, a day when the only sound I hear is a little bird out my window or maybe wind chimes. Yes, wind chimes.

Morning mania should be an Olympic sport and each of my fellow Iron Moms should be medal winners. I’ll get a letter written with this suggestion to the US Olympic Committee. I will also remember that these mornings will pass all too soon ….never!