What time does your day start?

by KATE HUNTER

I don’t know how it happened, but our day is starting earlier and earlier.

I had thought when our babies turned into kids, the crack-of-dawn start would be over, but no, it’s just ramping up. Sure, there was a brief period in the early primary years when the ‘hard deck’ ie we must be out of the house time was a civilized 8.20am but now that is a distant dream. On three out of five weekdays I’m backing out the driveway at 7.15am.

This is because of kids’ before-school activities, which I don’t think are excessive (many will disagree). The rule at our place is you can do one sport and one cultural extra-curricular activity a term. That means netty and guitar but not guitar, netty and gymnastics. This rule will remain in place until kids can get themselves to training, matches and lessons.

We’re not especially organized, so it takes me an hour and a half to have everyone sorted.

That means up at 5.45am. That’s early. But it takes me that long to:

pack lunches, make kids’ breakfast, do hair, look for hairclips, scream about where all the hairclips go, rant about missing library books, feed the dog, threaten to give the dog away, look for my car keys, rummage through the clean laundry pile for clean undies, rummage through the dirty laundry pile for clean undies, steal money from 9 year old’s piggy bank for parking meter, get caught, write IOU, give lecture on evils of theft, do girls’ hair, do own hair, make mental note to get roots done, remind 5 year old it’s sports uniform day, yell, depart, remember phone is on charger, return to house, depart again. With any luck it’s 7.14am or earlier. Often there is no luck.

There is often no breakfast either- for me. Like most parents, I feed myself last, using remaining time available. That means it just doesn’t happen.

Hell-llo café bought blueberry and white chocolate muffin the size of VW.

 belVita is a new range of biscuits specially designed for breakfast. Made with five wholegrains, low GI, rich in cereals and a source of fibre – they’re crunchy and delicious. With a glass of low-fat milk, they’ll give you up to 4 hours of sustained energy release. They’re also cheaper and a whole heap better for you than a VW sized white chocolate and blueberry muffin.

This post is sponsored by belVita Breakfast biscuits. Comments on this post are just for this post. If you want to talk about the IDEA of sponsored posts or the choice of advertisers please click We will be reading all those comments too for feedback.

How do mornings roll at your place? Are you super-organised? Is there time to spare or are you like me, yelling like a demented Masterchef judge, ‘Come ON! We have three minutes to get OUT THAT DOOR!’ If something has to be skipped, is it your breakfast?