Morning Play LIst, aka Morning Rituals

Morning Play List, aka Morning Rituals

It's 7:45 AM and I'm sitting alone at the kitchen table, forcing myself to eat a little breakfast. Today is our first "trial run" of our morning routine for school. We run our morning and evening routines the two weeks of summer camp that proceed school so we have a chance to fix our timings, add in essential missing elements, etcetera.

As I'm eating, Taylor Swift's "Never Grow Up" comes on. It's been on the playlist since the "Bigs" were the only kids in the house. And I'm still trying to preserve those last vestiges of innocence in the "littles." It's all just mind boggling.

I had so much fun updating my morning playlist recently, mostly inspired by Apple TV's Ted Lasso and Trying. My gosh, they have the best soundtracks. I recently added The Rolling Stones, "She's a Rainbow", and Sia's "Unstoppable" among others. Someone grumbled when I started up the playlist this morning, but it does actually help us all and a couple of songs later, sure enough there was a song he'd added to the mix. 

The playlist was born when the girls were school aged. We'd just returned home from a road trip and we had some road trip rituals: We'd eat breakfast, pack up the trailer, nestle the kids in the car, hook up, take off, and plug in a certain CD the girls loved to sing along to, which happened to be, Wee Sing America. We'd hit the first couple of songs in order and then had our favorites we'd skip around to before choosing an audio book or gazing out the window. 

When we got home, it occurred to me, maybe that type of ritual would help our mornings. We were homeschooling at the time and the girls had a hard time getting started some days because their mama had a lack of structure. We now know their mama has ADHD, but that's another story! I never mentioned the morning playlist, really just kind of did it for me, but started playing it every morning in the kitchen. Before long, our mornings smoothed themselves out. 

It's not magic, but works like it. We hear it, and subliminally, we move to the starting line. We take our marks. We get ready. We move through our routines. Please note, I am part of the "we." It helps me focus. If I'm up early, I don't usually turn on the playlist until my alarm goes off. I'm working or knitting or focused on a project. I'm not yet in "ready mode." The playlist turns it all on.

15 years later, the playlist has taken on a life of its own. Once someone mentioned they'd heard a particular song too much, so I took it off. A couple years later, someone mentioned the tone was "preachy. Ok. I do take feedback. It has morphed over time and sometimes a song, like the one from Sia just mentioned, comes up that just must be added. I don't worry about the length of the list. When we leave the kitchen, I turn it off. Sometimes we hear 15 songs and sometimes we hear 3, so it doesn't matter. On weekends, I start on track 6 or 8 just for fun. No one's ever noticed. Once, when my dad was dying and I'd had a pretty bumpy day at work, I played it while I cooked supper and no one even noticed; it was weirdly settling. 

Do you have playlists that help your family through its routines? If so, I'd love to hear about them them! Just for grins, I'll share our current version below, but know, it may not even be current by the time you read this! Cheers!

"Holy as a Day is Spent" (Carrie Newcomer)

"Souls like Wheels" (Avett Brothers)

"Never Grow Up" (Taylor Swift)

"Island Song" (Adventure Time)

"She's a Rainbow" (Rolling Stones)

"Unstoppable" (Sia)

"All About That Bass (Meaghan Trainor)

"Rise Up" (Andra Day)

"This Is Me" (Keala Settle)

"Beautiful" (Christina Aguilera)

"We are the Champions" (Queen)

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (Iz)