Mom picks you up
Before mom arrives, waiting is an open stretch with no visible end, and once she is in the doorway the child is deep in something else entirely. The visual support below turns pickup into a route with a clear start and a clear finish.
♂Mom picks you up
An adult lifts a smiling child up into their arms.
About this visual support
Two things collide at pickup. One is the waiting: a child knows someone is coming, but not when, and the time until then cannot be measured by looking at it. The other is the interruption, because when the grown-up finally appears, the tower, the game or the sandcake has to be left half finished, and the child rarely chose the moment.
Visual support helps in both places, in different ways. A row of pictures that ends with pickup gives the waiting something to point at during the day. The same row, read from the front once mom is in the doorway, shows that what is on the floor gets an ending before the coat: one last round, tidying up, fetching the bag, a hug, out. The transition becomes a sequence instead of a yank.
One tip that takes the edge off the rush: decide in the morning what the final step of play will be, and point at that picture when you meet in the cloakroom. The decision is already made. In the Routined app you can set up pickup as its own small routine, with fourteen days to try it at no cost.