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The offspring woke me at 8.50am shrieking like some kind of disgruntled spirit. "OMG MUM I WAS MEANT TO BE AT SCHOOL HALF AN HOUR AGO!!!"
Now said offspring catches a bus to school so strictly speaking she doesn't require my participation to get there, although I like to get up to make her breakfast and throw money at her and repeatedly ask her why she's so grumpy until she storms out and slams the door. It's kind of our thing.
But over the past few months daughter has been asking me to set an alarm and wake her at 6am as she says her ipad alarm doesn't wake her. I don't get why; it wakes me from the next room, yet when I enter her room, she's using the ipad as a pillow and has Joel Fletcher begging her to swing her hips while her head bounces up and down from the vibration, and she's still snoring away. My beautiful sweet baby that slept through the night from the day she was born and could, I am quite sure, sleep through the apocalypse.
Anyway I'm not very happy about the alarm situation. It used to really anger me that ABF expected and tried to force me to be his alarm complete with snooze button and I don't want to do it for my child. I will not live any more days of my life as an alarm clock. I've offered her several alternatives, including my ipod, my old phone which has a super-loud alarm and even this curious antique contraption I found in the shed called a clock radio. She has refused all of them, preferring to opt for the maternal alarm with the convenient blame absolution function when she's late.
Now I might have felt some remorse if I had AGREED to this job but I have not. I have maintained that she is perfectly capable of getting up and being on time for school, and that if I am not incidentally awake at 6am to awaken her then, it's in the hands of the Gods. Or she could just set an alarm. Or 5. Whatever.
So I blearily looked up the bus timetable and told her to hurry up and I would drive her to the bus stop. The look on her face could have melted a candle. I was on the verge of cracking an egg into a pan and asking her to look at it real hard to see what would happen.
Lots of stomping around the house ensued and...crying. I was really kind of incredulous but decided I was feeling adventurous and would drive her to school. NOT because of her performance or because I pitied her but because I felt like being brave. It's a nice sunny morning, it's almost 9am so the rush is subsiding, why not be bold and go for a drive into the center of town? Seize the day!!!
Anyway before I could tell her this, the entity that takes over my child in the mornings stormed up to me, shook her shoulders in that weird way that teenage girls do before they attack (is it like when cats wiggle their butts before they pounce I wonder?) and let me have it. Life would be EASIER if I could just drive her to school every day like ALL THE OTHER NORMAL MUMS she screamed. I resisted the urge to ask her if all of the friends she catches the bus with every day are imaginary (I hope not because I can see them too ). I also resisted the urge not to be hurt by her words or to launch a counter-attack as I once would have. I started to become agitated and start listing all of the things I do for her and the ways in which I sacrifice and hearing myself sounding like my own mother I stopped, and decided that it wouldn't serve anyone to start JADEing either. Driving her to school might have seemed to her as though I was rewarding her bad behavior, I don't know. But what she thought in that moment was not relevant. What mattered was that I had decided to go for my very first drive into the busy city on a lovely sunny morning and I wanted to do it with a clear head and a smile on my face.
It was a delightful drive. Half of it is along the waterfront so aside from the temptation to look at the sun glinting off the water instead of the road, it's very nice. I also discovered that peak hour driving in the city is easy, not scary. Everything moves so slowly; there's nothing difficult about it. So as ridiculous as it must sound, that was an achievement and now that i'v done it once, I know i can replicate it
So, fear conquered, argument averted, offense not taken and serenity still in tact.
What fabulous start to a Friday!
And I guess deep purple must have been playing in the car by the way lol. No other explanation for the fact that I'm singing everything to the tune of hush today
-- Edited by missmeliss on Thursday 30th of July 2015 08:48:08 PM
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If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see? (Lewis Caroll)
Missmel - you made me very grateful that my 2 boys are grown and we no longer have to do the school morning shuffle battle!!! Oh....I remember those days all too well!
Considering they are males, and I assumed when they arrived on this world there would be less drama, I will share that they can give a group of teen girls a run for the money...
So lovely to hear your program in work. So wonderful to see you conquer your fear of driving. And so happy to watch you work this program! I do agree that HP works so well in our lives when we let him/her!
Happy Friday back at you - now...just think about it....if you wanted, you could drive yourself any place you 'want' to go - what a gift!
(((Hugs)))
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Practice the PAUSE...Pause before judging. Pause before assuming. Pause before accusing. Pause whenever you are about to react harshly and you will avoid doing and saying things you will later regret. ~~~~ Lori Deschene
Your offspring (love that) doesn't need you to enable her addiction to sleeping in - the sooner we lay the consequences of their choices at their feet, the sooner they grow into responsible adults! I know there are people who sleep through regular alarms, my phone does this little pre-alarm buzz that's almost nothing and that wakes me up before the alarm sounds! Maybe engage her in researching what others who have a hard time waking do to make sure they get up because you don't want the job of alarm-queen. Posted recently to my FB was a bed someone was building that flings you out of bed! I've seen alarms that are rolling balls, it rolls around on the floor screaming until you are awake enough to catch it and throw it out the window - good for one morning's get up eh?
Teenage-hood are the reason we start out as cute little cuddly-wuddly babies - we have to develop this deep love for them so we can resist the urges to kill them when they are ranting teens!
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
and could, I am quite sure, sleep through the apocalypse.
). I also resisted the urge not to be hurt by her words or to launch a counter-attack as I once would have. I started to become agitated and start listing all of the things I do for her and the ways in which I sacrifice and hearing myself sounding like my own mother I stopped, and decided that it wouldn't serve anyone to start JADEing either. Driving her to school might have seemed to her as though I was rewarding her bad behavior, I don't know. But what she thought in that moment was not relevant. What mattered was that I had decided to go for my very first drive into the busy city on a lovely sunny morning and I wanted to do it with a clear head and a smile on my face.