So we have this elaborate system of "self balancing" bed-times and wake-up times in our house that are supposed to encourage morning responsibility in our children. Herself and I are not micro managers, so essentially it is like this: we have a few absolutes vis: 1: Children must have a certain amount of sleep time available to them, 2: Chores must get done. 3: Children must be ready for school by 6:20 (breakfast time) Everything else is variable.
For instance, if the chores do not get done one morning, then obviously they did not have enough time to complete them, so they must be responsible for waking up 15 minutes earlier the next morning. But since they must have a certain amount of sleep time available to them, that usually means that they need to go to bed 15 minutes earlier the night before. In this fashion, they are actually making decisions each morning (how hard they are working) that directly affect their bed time later that night and what time they are getting up the next morning. It really is about 2 parts Intentional Parenting and about 98 parts Lazy Parenting. I see the advantages of children who realize the direct consequences of their actions, but mostly I just hate nagging them to do their chores.
At various times we have had one child that was getting up at 4:something in the morning, and going to bed at 6:30 (ish? I'm not good with details) which means she had to scramble to get supper eaten and cleaned up (Herself and I also don't really do dishes anymore- again: Lazy Parenting). I told this child at one point that if she continued to fail at chore completion, and if I needed to, I would come to school and pick her up and take her home early in order for her to get to bed early enough... How embarrassing for a Jr. higher! It didn't come to that, though.
This posting wasn't really meant to be a parenting lecture; I was just trying to give a little background for my funny story. But anyway, we ran into a little snag on our elaborate Lazy Parenting Scheme: sometimes the girls just lay in bed with their alarms going off for 10 minutes, sleeping through it while others in the household who have earned the privilege of sleeping in are woken up. Herself came up with a Win/Win solution for this: Daddy likes to wake girls by squirting them in the face with a squirt bottle/ Girls getting woken up by getting squirted in the face with a squirt bottle wakes them up and discourages them sleeping through alarms! Genius!! You see why I married this woman??? We set up a 2 minute rule; if the alarm gets shut off within 2 minutes, no facial squirting. It fit in really nicely with our Lazy Parenting Style, since regardless of when the girls are supposed to get up, I am almost always up anyway.
Okay, on the first morning we implemented this new idea, I'm sitting in my chair in the wee hours of the morning reading my book with my squirt bottle filled and ready, listening for alarms. Hark! At 5:00, I hear that musical BEEP, BEEP, BEEP- silence. Oh, drat! She shut it off! So I am left, alone and disappointed. But about 10 minutes later, I get up to get a cup of coffee and glance back to her bedroom and notice there is no light on! I instantly assume that she shut off her alarm, but crawled back into bed and went to sleep! Oh joy! Here is righteous opportunity to squirt a girl awake with my squirt bottle!!! I grab my bottle, tear down the hall, rip the door open, flip the light on, and begin hosing down Second Oldest Daughter in the face, and proceed to rip off bed covers and squirt any and all available skin showing; feet, legs, neck, etc.with cold blasts of water.
I don't know if those of you who actually know Second Oldest Daughter realize this about her, but she is what is commonly referred to as a "SPAZ." By this I mean that when she gets startled or suddenly realized something, it is always followed by wild gesticulation, usually hand/arm tossing, leg pump (whether she is sitting or standing) and her whole body moving. This was the case that cheery morning as I was spraying her down in bed. It looked like she was doing horizontal calisthenics while in bed. And as I'm spraying her, she begins to shout nonsense stuff that makes no sense at all to me at first, but slowly my brain finally puts together that she is saying that it wasn't her alarm going off at all, but her sister's, downstairs.
"Oh... sorry... I'm gonna... go outside... your room now... Have a good morning"
Awkward!
I went out in the hallway, and looked downstairs and saw the light on of Oldest Daughter, and could hear industrious sounds coming out of her room. Hmmm. I went back to Second Oldest Daughter bedroom and stood outside her door for a moment. Then I knocked, came in and said "So, I'm going to squirt you one more time, just for fun, I think." She said "Okay" and so I did. Then left. End of story.
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