When your kids are small, adorable, wee babies, they wake up in the morning ready to eat and start their day. They gurgle excitedly and you don’t mind making the zombie walk into several walls and door frames to finally find their room and be greeted with that excited, kicking-through-my-onesie-smile. It doesn’t take any poking, prodding or sophisticated alarm systems or trickery with lighting to get those kids moving. In fact, you wish for the day when your kids will want to sleep in and you get to wake them up—not the other way around.

 
Be careful what you wish for.

 
My morning routine plays out a little like this.

 
My alarm goes off at 6am. I am awake at 5:59am but I watch the clock, wait for the first beep and then see how quickly I can turn off the alarm and crawl towards the shower.

 
I head down to the kitchen to start the kettle for my oatmeal. Greg has already been up for what appears to be 7 cups of coffee so roughly 5 hours?

 
I hear Ellie’s alarm go off (for the first time) but no other stirring of any kind.

 
I wander down to Ellie’s room where her limp arm is resting on top of her alarm clock, her body, motionless. I quietly, sweetly and with all the love I can muster say, “Good morning sweetheart. It’s…”

 
“What time is it?”

 
“It’s 6:15am”

 
And regardless of how I answer, it could be “It’s 6:12,” “6:18,” or “noon” it is never, nor will it ever be the right time to wake Ellie.

 
She mutters something about me ruining her dream, arguably the best she’s ever had and will never, ever be able to remember what it was about. She requests a re-set on the alarm to give her five more minutes of sleep and then insists I turn on her bedroom light, flick it on and off for a series of four or five rounds, just to get her thinking about a wakeful state. Then maybe she’ll forgive me for robbing her of that dream that meant so much to her she has no recollection of it.

 
Then I hear the pitter-patter which is more of a slammy-slammer of Chloe’s little feet storming down the hall.

 
Pink Fuzzy is wrapped around her entire body including her head so it might not be Chloe at all, perhaps a pint-sized boyfriend she snuck in late at night. We have had MANY conversations about not mummy-wrapping people in Pink Fuzzy as we’ve had one tumble down the stairs and that was tumble too many.

 
Chloe walks into me indicating it’s okay if I hug her briefly but she will make no effort to hug me back. I hear through a muffled layer of polar fleece, “Can I have warm milk and shows?”

 
Coming right up.

 
Ellie slams her alarm clock for round two.

 
I hear Hanna’s bed squeak. Oh God, deep breath. The bear has been awoken by something. It could have been her sister’s alarm, our footsteps, someone reading, breathing, a car door two blocks away, a goose losing a feather.

 
She stumbles into her door. I know this is somehow my fault.

 
My fault for bringing the morning for “MAKING US GO TO SCHOOL!” for living in a house with doors.

 
Rise and shine family! I liked it better when you were in onesies.