I don’t know what I thought mornings would be like in my fifties, perhaps jump out of bed and go for a power walk around the neighbourhood while watching the sun rise, grab the newspaper from the gate, jump into the shower, dress for work then have a coffee while sitting with my feet up and slowly digesting the local news from the paper and chatting to hubby, flick on the television or scroll through the news feeds on my phone seeing what weird and wonderful things had happened whilst I was blissfully asleep, kiss goodbye and off to work.

In reality, my mornings are nothing like this, mornings are madness no matter what time the eyes open to take in the new day.

Our amazing nine-year-old grandson has been in our full-time care for over five years and his mornings are never structured, leisurely or quiet and distraction from the ‘what needs to happen’ to get off to school is the norm in our house.

Routine is sabotaged!

Some mornings he is out of bed dancing around with his MP3 music player and airphones swinging as he moves with flexibility that I can only dream about.

Other times he just won’t get out of bed not even with the threat of ‘you’ll be going to school in your pyjamas’ seems to budge the lump from under the covers; too often to count, he has been frantically scrambling to get dressed when the car is already started.

He is the master of trickery, using the old ‘I’m not getting out of bed routine’ but actually he is dressed and hiding in the wardrobe to watch you pull back the blankets on his strategically placed pillow and toys used to emulate himself sleeping ‘Surprise!’.

I don’t know what I want for breakfast, I don’t want any breakfast, where is my breakfast?

The frustration levels for Gran and Pops can rise, especially when a work meeting is scheduled and the clock is ticking (it always seems to run faster in the mornings) but I have found that rather than stress about the madness it is best just to go about my routine and leave him to his or when all else fails I turn up the music and we dance.

99.9% of the time the car pulls out the driveway when it should and we all get to where we are going. So what if some days his hair is not brushed or remnants of breakfast remain on his face, we are a loving supporting family unit who just happen to suffer from Morning Madness.

Shall we listen to ‘Walk of Life’ by Dire Straits or ‘Old Town Road’ by Lil Nas X and Billy Cyrus on the way?

The joys of grandparent’s raising grandchildren.