14 Things That Might Happen Before 8am When You Have Kids Under 5

When I was in college you know what I hated? When I had to take an 8:00am class. That was SOOOOO early! Oh man, if only I could time travel back to that life and tell my pre-mom self to stop pouting and thank the good Lord above for the UNINTERRUPTED sleep I was getting.

Four kids later, life looks a little different. This morning I was standing in my kitchen and looked at the clock while little people crowded around me. It was 7:55am.

Have you ever stopped to think about all the things that happen before 8am with little kids?

Moms, we are legitimate rockstars.

14 Things That Might Happen Before 8am When You Have Kids Under Five

1. You might wake up in your bed, or you might not. Most likely, you played a game of musical beds all night, tip-toeing from one to the next, doing whatever you could to keep them from waking each other up when they yelled “POTTY!” and “MOMMY!”
2. You might go down to the kitchen to find someone fixing some cereal, and by fixing I mean pouring the entire contents of the Cheerios box into the back of his toy dump truck.
3. You might get requests for milk, but only if you can manage to find the right colored cup. It MUST be the yellow one, but NOT the blue one. Not today at least, but be aware that by tomorrow morning, preferences will be different.
4. You might make yourself a cup of coffee, set it on the counter, glance at it a million times, but never take a sip. As a result, baristas love you because you aren’t picky. Caffeine in any form at any temperature is your best friend.
5. You might check your phone and within seconds it’s confiscated by your four year old, who NEEDS to watch weird videos. You might wonder why YOU didn’t come up with the idea to unbox toys, review them, and become a YouTube sensation millionaire.
6. You might run upstairs to put a load of laundry in the washer, and come downstairs to find your two year old hanging from the refrigerator door, holding a can of beer, and yelling, “DAD’S JUICE!”
7. You might simultaneously hear your three year old shout, “Mommy, I helping you!” and you find her in the bathroom with a toilet brush in hand, splashing and “cleaning the floor.”
8. You might hear your other three year old yelling bloody murder from the basement because Netflix disconnected and she was frantically worried about what happened to My Little Pony.
9. You might come back upstairs to find that your two year old unlocked the front door, went outside on the front porch, and is now completely naked and pointing at his diaper yelling, “Off! I did it!”
10. You might run upstairs to help your husband find clean underwear, when you realize someone has taken your tampons out of the drawer, unwrapped them, and is feeding them as “popsicles” to their dolls.
11. You might declare you’re taking a shower, and 30 seconds later, there you are with four little ones who want to take a shower too.
12. You might be showering when one of your three year olds decides she’s going to use the scale in the corner for her stage so she can be Elsa and sing “Let It Go!” at the TOP of her lungs. You might be invited to share the stage with her, taking “singing in the shower” to a level you don’t know you’re comfortable with.
13. You might get out of the shower and realize there are no towels in sight, but your little one really wants to get out. So he does. You run to get towels, and when you get back you hear him yelling, “POOP! I did it!” There it is, straight up on the floor.
14. You might throw a diaper on him, and free him to run downstairs while you clean up his poop. Upon walking down the stairs, you realize that he’s taken the carton of chocolate milk and poured it all over the kitchen table. You go over to the sink, while everyone crowds around you. That’s when you look at the clock.

It’s 7:55am and you realize that you’ve basically already put in a full day of work. At first you feel defeated. How in the WORLD are you going to get through the rest of the day? But then you remember something. You smell like poop, your house is a MESS, and your husband is STILL looking for underwear, but you are with your people, and there is no place in the world you’d rather be.

Chaos is your life, and your LIFE is blessed.

xo,

Amber

P.S. For more reflections on parenthood and life, follow us on Facebook (Hun Let’s Run) and on Instagram: @ambermariekuiper and @jakekuiper! We’d also love for you to subscribe to our Hun, Let’s Run Podcast! For more info about joining our fitness community as a customer or coach, please email us at amber@mommysmetime.com!