Unlike most children their age, my children (ages 2 and 5) have the sleep patterns of teenagers. Given the choice, they would prefer to stay up late, and sleep late in the morning. It is not unusual to come upstairs at 10:30 pm to find our daughter sitting up, with the light on, “reading” a book when she should be sleeping.
I know you won’t believe it, but there is a downside to having children who like to sleep in. I only have two words to say…. School bus.
The school bus arrives at 8:05 am each morning to pick up our son for kindergarten. The school bus does not care that he stayed up until 11 pm reading about dinosaurs. The school bus will not wait just because he didn’t get out of bed until 7:30 am, and even then it was really more a case of being dragged out of bed. The school bus will zip right by our home, even though we are right inside the front door struggling to get our son to put a sweater on underneath his windbreaker.
We haven’t missed the bus – yet. But over the last 2 weeks the mornings have varied from smooth as silk to hellish and horrendous. Last week my son sat on my bedroom floor, naked, with his hands inserted deep within his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle briefs, glaring at me murderously. My crime? I suggested that the TMNT briefs were acceptable, even though he wanted to wear his Batman boxer briefs.
The punishment for this boy’s unacceptable behavior is to prevent him from watching television before bed. The problem is, by announcing that, because of his behavior he has now lost television, we risk starting another breakdown and delaying things even further. It’s enough to drive a woman to drink mass quantities of coffee when she gets to work.
Oh wait, that’s what I do already.
This morning my daughter decided to get into the act. At 2 years old she’s a good sleeper, but usually pretty friendly in the morning. Until today. My cheery greeting was met by a grumpy girl who looked at me, then rolled over mumbling “Go Away.” Gentle prodding and tickling was rebuffed with more yelps of “Go Away” and a few well aimed kicks to my hip.
I can’t even imagine what life is going to be like when they are ACTUALLY teenagers. I believe we are doomed.
