photo credit: me and the sysop
My eyes open, and I stretch, wondering why there’s a warm little body snuggled up against mine. I don’t remember Becca coming into bed with us last night…

She’s awake as well now, and the usual litany of “Mom!”, “Mom!” begins. Sighing, I roll over to check the alarm clock, figuring that it has to be close to time to get up.

8:14

Wait, did I read that wrong? Surely it says 7:14, not 8:14 – right?

Nope, it’s 8:14 all right. Which means that Abby and Hannah’s bus would have picked them up 15 minutes ago. If they were out at the bus stop, that is.

As I lie there for a moment trying to wrap my still-sleepy brain around that fact, I listen to hear if there’s possibly anyone upstairs. Like maybe a husband who could’ve gotten the girls up and off to school without waking me up, to be nice and let me sleep…  Well – it could happen.  It just doesn’t. Ever. Especially since I then remember that he had a 7am meeting at work this morning, so had to leave earlier than usual. I also remember thinking as I lay down in bed the night before, that I needed to pay attention and WAKE UP when my alarm went off so we’d all get up on time.

That plan apparently didn’t work so well.

Suddenly galvanized into action, I jump out of bed and grab clean clothes from my dresser, all while trying to shake off a clinging toddler still chanting “Mom?”, “Mom?” and trying to become dead weight in order to keep me in bed.

Out of necessity, I scoop her up and carry her up the stairs and into the bedroom hallway. I step in to Abby’s room to find her awake, but only just. She looks at her clock in amazement as I begin to shout yell calmly give commands like ‘get out of bed!’ and ‘come on, get up!’. By this point they’ve already missed the bus – and there’s no way they’ll get to school on time. But there’s still this overwhelming need to RUSH.

With Abby moving, I step across the hallway and shake Hannah. She’s usually the one that drags her feet about getting out of bed, and gets whiny and upset about things like picking out her own clothes. Which reminds me that her clean clothes are still stacked on the couch in the living room from when I folded them the night before, so I put Becca down and head in there to grab an outfit for Hannah.

With Abby dressed and eating, Hannah heading that way, and Becca sitting at the kitchen table, I jump in the shower. Within minutes, I hear fighting out in the kitchen. Over the sound of running water, I holler “what’s the fighting about?”, and hear back Hannah’s voice – “Becca wants the cereal box, and I’m looking at it!”.

I think for a minute – yes, I sat Becca down at the table, but did I actually give her breakfast?  Nope. So I yell back for Hannah to give Becca some cereal. One problem solved.

It’s amazing how quickly we can all move when we have to. By 8:45, only a half hour after waking up, all 3 kids are fed, dressed and getting their shoes, coats and backpacks on. I call the school to let them know that the girls are on their way, and also give daycare a call since Becca was supposed to be there 15 minutes ago for one of her two mornings there.

Darn, I’m already down to less than 3 hours of ‘productivity’ or ‘me’ time.

So we have our first experience with school ‘tardy slips’ and I wonder if I’ve scarred the girls for life by this experience. Becca gets dropped off with no mishaps, and I head home to salvage what I can of my ‘kid-free’ time.

There’s a message on the answering maching when I walk in the door. It’s Ron – wanting to make sure that we all had gotten up and around ok.

Um, thanks for the thought – but I think it’s a bit late at this point.  I call him back anyway, to let him know that yes, we were late, but that everyone’s where they’re supposed to be now.

Ron – “I tried to wake Abby up at 6:40am but all she wanted was to go back to sleep. So I got Becca up and put her in bed with you, thinking that she’d wake you up soon.”

Oh, so that’s how Becca got in bed with me. I think that particular idea flopped though, seeing as all she did was to snuggle in and go back to sleep. Not exactly a ‘wake-up’ call.

photo credit: fiveforefun

In my own defense – yes, I had an alarm set. But – on this clock, there’s no big, obvious ‘snooze’ button, so my half-asleep fingers usually find the ‘off’ button much more easily. And I have absolutely no memory of hearing my alarm go off this morning. Nope, zero. Zip. Zilch.

Ron has a standing meeting at work at 7am on Tuesdays. Last week I woke up at 7:40am and still managed to get the girls off on the bus on time. Barely.

This week obviously was worse.

My solution for next week? We’re going to set the alarm on Abby’s clock next Monday night. Yes, I’m entrusting our entire wake-up time to a 7-year-old. Then again, this is the child who freaks out when something happens a minute earlier or later than it’s supposed to.

I have the feeling that we’ll all be up on time next week.