The mornings are tough. I am trying to draw a line in the proverbial sand. 6am to 6:45 am is Mom Time. I do not want to do anything for anyone else but myself. I need to shower, get dressed and do all the things I need to do in order to get ready for my day, without interruption. The boys are sleeping and thus, they do not interrupt. However, my daughter needs to get up during this time as well and get herself ready for school. She has set her alarm to go off but it goes off to music and she continues to sleep through it.
So I find myself having to wake her up. And she does not wake up easily or quickly. And now Mom Time gets shortened because I have to spend precious minutes in between or during my personal time waking her up. This morning was no different, I grabbed my bathrobe and gave her a couple of shakes. She rolled over. I got in the shower, dried off, moussed my hair and then I shook her again, calling her name. She stirred slightly. I kept trying while I brushed my teeth.
Then I started to get panicky because it is close to 6:45 and I was no where near ready. My hair was not dry. My make-up was not on and I was not dressed and she was still not up. I had to get more forceful. My voice got louder and after several minutes, she finally sat up in bed. I took myself down, in my bathrobe, to the kitchen and put together her lunch and started the lunches for the boys. It’s 7:00 and she was meandering down the stairs, telling me there was not enough time to get to the bus. She still had to put her shoes on, get her back pack, put her lunch in it, put on her coat. By the time she finally started moving toward the door, it was 7:08 and she told me that she would probably miss the bus.
I sensed that she wanted to just give up. But there is a lesson that is important and I wanted her to get it. So, I told her to go. If she missed the bus, then she could come back but she needed to hurry.
A few minutes went by, I was in the middle of drying my hair. I still had 3 boys to wake up and dress. She came back. She missed the bus. I told her that she would have to write that down when she signs in at school.
The next several minutes were very frustrating for me because now, in order to get her to school before 8 am, I had to get every one up and out the door in less than 10 minutes. The boys were still sound asleep. At 7:45, I finally had everyone up and somewhat awake and Princess decided at that very moment that she wanted to fill up her water bottle.
I completely lost my cool. This just pushed me over the edge. It was not pretty. I dropped the boys off and she got an earful as we drove over to school. She tried to tell me that she didn’t know we were leaving then.
Excuse me?
I was telling everyone to get their shoes on and grab their coats and HEAD OUT THE DOOR and you didn’t know we were leaving? You did not look at the clock and note that the time was now 7:50 am…and school starts at WHAT TIME? 8 am? It takes 15 minutes to get you to school…? You could not put that together? You could not fill this all important water bottle in the 30 minutes you had from the time you came home to say you missed the bus to the time I started telling YOU specifically to get YOUR stuff and GET INTO the car??
Silence.
Ohhh, girlfriend…don’t give Momma silence. Huh uh…
Then she says, audaciously, “If I say I missed the bus, I need a note or a phone call or it will be unexcused.”
Oh Daughter….oh, oh, oh Daughter…
Do you think this is an excused tardy? Do you think I should excuse you when I spent the better part of 30 minutes trying to wake you up and get you out the door and then you spent 5 minutes telling me how you didn’t have enough time to get to the bus while you drag your feet and can’t hurry because your backpack is too heavy? Exactly who’s responsibility is this? Who is doing you a favor in getting you to school at all today?
What do you think? You can answer me. Is this an excused tardy?
“No.”
What are the consequences of unexcused tardies?
How many unexcused tardies do you have to get before you get detention?
“Three.”
How many do you have?
“One.”
Including today?
“Two.”
Then you are on thin ice, aren’t you? You have a problem to fix. I will help you. We have a different alarm clock that no one is using. We will move that upstairs and you will set it for 6 am.
She was silent and turned away from me but I could see tears in her eyes. Something was getting through. Her face was soft, so she was not angry. She was chastened. This is good.
Consequences are not comfortable, daughter. But it is how we learn.
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