Sunday mornings

Sunday mornings have started to have a routine.

At about 6:30 Dave's alarm clock wakes him (and usually me) up. At about 7:00 he's all set to go for a bike ride. He usually plans just over two hours of riding and I think the route covers 30-35 miles.

My plan while he's out is to attempt a lie in but somehow Hannah and Ethan (particularly Ethan) have a sixth sense and their body clocks wake them up, usually before Dave has even left the house.

I usually resist getting out of bed until Ethan's refrain of "Ne ner ner ner ner ner ner ner, ne ner ner ner ner ner ner ner, ne ner ner ner ner ner ner Batman!" becomes too insistent to ignore.

I drag myself downstairs, fetch milk in beakers and return back upstairs to wake the children. Wake is not quite the right word because they're already awake but I consider I'm giving them permission to be awake.

After reading a few books we decide it's time for breakfast, a decision that's usually greeted with a "Yehay!".

After breakfast they're allowed to play in their pyjamas. This morning Ethan decided to colour his face and a table in the dining room with blue and green pen. Fortunately it a small play table and the ink was washable.

After clearing up the mess that results from children eating anything, I start to think about breakfast for the grown ups. I have got into a habit recently of making a cooked breakfast for Dave as a reward for the bike ride and to fill the resultant energy gap. It's not an entirely selfless act. Let's face it, it's just as easy to do two cooked breakfasts as it is to do one.

So hopefully when Dave crawls in through the door he has a nice hot breakfast waiting for him and most of the washing up has been done.

But, nobody is showered, washed or dressed....he can't expect everything, can he?