Waking Kids Up in the Morning
What is it about getting kids up for school? In my household, it's like waking the dead. They all have two alarm clocks; one has three, and the sounds that come from all of them are as annoying as is humanly tolerable. I have to dubious honor of the making the first round of wake up calls. I try gentle measures at first (ever the optimist) and then I gradually go to louder and rougher measures until, gazing into the countenances of children in vegetative states, I surrender. In come the cavalry--my husband. He resorts to yanking them out of bed and tossing them outside in the cold.
It doesn't matter how early they go to bed the night before, it takes three or four attempts, each louder by several hundred decibels, before they walk, like zombies to the breakfast table. But, today, we have a holiday for teacher inservices and waking them us early was a breeze. My secret? I announced: "Whoever wants to go to Shipley's for donuts, it's now or never." It sounded like a herd of rabid buffalo trampling down the stairs. There voices were clear and lively, not the slur of mumbling on school mornings, and their eyes were actually open. Most of my kids come down stairs with tehir eyes shut, cocooned in a blanket, only to flounce themselves onto the nearest couch and start snoozing again. In other words, they go back to bed, but in a different bed. From know on, I'm going to give them one wake up call. Then, I'm only leaving with those in my car by 7:45 A.M. It'll be lonely at first, but sometimes, that's the nature of a mother's life, isn't it?