Morningitis

Micah, Elise and Isaiah on the first day of school

This blog entry would be much more fun if I had thought to videotape my kids each morning to share here, but a text description will have to suffice. Elise and Micah both have to get on the bus an hour earlier this year. We have had it very easy the past few years with the bus arriving at 8:30 which allowed them to sleep as long as they wanted and leisurely get ready to go. They have to be out the door by around 7:15 this year and it has rocked all of our worlds. I am having to set an alarm for the first time in years. I know that sounds spoiled, but some of the reason I haven’t had to set an alarm is I have had early riser kiddos who have awakened me for the past decade. Now that Micah and Elise have decided to sleep in more, they have to attend schools that start earlier. Bummer.

The first several days that I woke up Micah for school, he yelled at me. I quickly put an end to that by giving him the choice to wake up to an annoying alarm clock that he could yell at or to a sweet motherly voice that he could not yell at. He is no longer yelling, but some mornings he has to put his face in his pillow to suppress it. His first day of school was hilarious with him going downstairs three different times forgetting why he went down there in the first place.

Elise did fine for the first week, but has really struggled the past two weeks. She has awakened with a large variety of ailments and aches and pains in every body part. She has asked me to take her temperature almost every day as she is certain that her fatigue is due to an illness. Last week she said she hated having to go to school. This resulted in a fist pump and smile from Micah. He said “You have finally come over to the dark side.” I don’t remember much about growing up with my brothers as they were out of the house by the time I left elementary school, but I do remember them repeatedly telling me I would soon hate school just like they did. Micah has been saying the same thing to Elise for the past couple years and was thrilled to hear her say she hated school.

One day last week Elise said “You remember how you told us that we don’t have to go to school every day and some days we can just choose to stay home?” My eloquent response was, “Huh?” Tony pointed out that I would tell the kids they didn’t have to go to summer camp so that must be what she was thinking. Tony wakes up early and goes in to work before the kids even get up so he hasn’t been able to witness our sad parade in the morning. On Friday, he worked from home so he got to see Elise bent over at the waist with one hand on her back and one clutching the table as she moaned about her latest reason for not being able to go to school. It’s all pretty comical, unless you are Elise.