Mornings

I purchased Beth Moore's, Get Out of the Pit, on CD. As I listened I heard her say this as an illustration: I never put alarm clocks in my girl's room because I wanted them to always be awakened in the morning by the voice of some one that loves them. This made me just cry and cry. I thought it was the sweetest thing I had ever heard. See, I love to wake my kids up in the morning. I look forward to the opportunity to sit on their bed and tickle and snuggle them. They like it too. Oh, I know that lots of times they enjoy it for a different reason than I. The longer snuggle time the longer they can put off getting up. :) I wanted to ask Beth, how did you train them to be ready for the real world? How did they know how to get themselves up and ready for the day on time? I used to snuggle and sing to my kids to get them up. Sing? Well, have you ever heard a beagle howl, yea that's more like what I did. See the point was to get them awake and moving. So I would sing my own renditions of Wake Up Little Suzy and Rise and Shine and Give God the Glory. Oh how they would fuss and grumble. Couple mornings they really got ugly so I stopped. Then several months later we were all sitting around chatting and that came up. Do you know they both wanted to know why I quit singing to them?! They expressed that they actually missed it. You could have blown me over!

I have spent an hour trying to get this post to say what I want to say. It all sounds like whining and complaining.

Mornings at my house aren't working for me. I stress out. I believe that my kids should be getting their own selves up and dressed for school. I believe that they should be able to work together a routine with the bath room and shower times that works for both of them. I believe that they should respect the fact that they both want to shower in the morning and then be able to agree to shower times and stick to it. On the other hand I love to wake them up and give them that snuggle time and I believe that IF every one gets equal time in the shower and that we're all ready on time that long showers aren't a problem. This isn't what is happening. How do I get these guys to work things out and get it together? How do I remove myself from the morning routine so that they are forced to work things out? Even though I say that I love to wake them and snuggle them, I also would very much enjoy getting up and just being responsible for me and the things I have to get done. That would involve me getting myself dressed and ready for the day, making breakfast for all and getting lunches together.

I'm not real sure what the point of this post was. Just something that is really on my mind right now. What Beth shared about the alarm clock touched a spot for me because she broke from what I considered the norm of teaching kids to get themselves up and ready for the day. I guess I feel guilty for snuggling my kids and waking them rather than making them get up on their own. So then we have all these mixed messages going on in the morning. Some mornings I sit on the edge of their bed and wake them up slow and sweet; other mornings I've slept late and they didn't get up to the alarm and I'm hollering for them to get up and get moving. I need to decide which it's going to be and be committed and consistent to it.

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The other morning I woke Kevin and sat and caressed him for a brief moment. Then I made him sit up and wake up so he could get up and in the shower. I sat in the hall to put on my shoes. As I looked in his room he was sitting up in the bed with his covers over his head. All I could see was his back, but I could tell he was doing something. "Kevin", I asked, "What are you doing?" " I didn't get enough tickles this morning so I'm tickling myself." That is indeed what he was doing; tickling his own tummy.