At some point, I realized that I could start the kids' school morning oatmeal (made with milk) in the microwave before I went up to wake them and get them dressed. It means that I can put it in for two minutes @ 7 a.m., walk up, wake the kids and prompt through dressing as needed, have them downstairs by about 7:10, by which point the oatmeal has cooled enough that Kavi can easily eat it, drink her milk, get her shoes on and backpack packed and be comfortably out the door at 7:20 to meet the bus on time.
No stress! All the food eaten, with enough milk in it that I worry less about sufficient nutrition. (I never drank milk as a kid, and yes, I sometimes blame that for my 5'0" of height. I know, height is genetic, but surely never getting enough calcium could stunt your growth a bit?) It's like magic.
Now I just need to get their clock / alarm reset (damned DST), and maybe I can skip going up at all and get myself ten more minutes of morning Facebook? A girl can dream.
For the Trader Joe’s instant oatmeal we use, we found that we could use less milk than it called for, run the microwave for a little less than it called for, and it would get fully hot and rehydrated, but be a little thick, and too hot. Add a little more milk at that point, and it cools off and gets to a nice consistency too.