The Battle

As a parent, I know there will be those days when Hayes and I go head to head. He picked today. I wish there was a magic formula for the morning. I know my mom thinks there is: no TV, up on time, to the breakfast table, up to do the clothes, teeth and hair and out the door. If only it were so simple.

Hayes just doesn't want to wake up. I don't mean to say he's groggy or moody in the morning. No; I mean to say that Hayes can sleep through just about anything. Just ask Caroline and Grace Brenner. I can get him fully dressed and he is not yet awake. It takes a full 10 minutes to get him to groggy in the morning. And you can forget all that good advice about eating a healthy breakfast. Nine times out of ten we are bolting down a Clif Bar and a juice box in the van on the way to school.

I keep thinking to myself that if we just get him to bed on time he will be some much better in the mornings. The thing is, I can get him into the bed, fully washed and pajamaed at 7:30 and he is still rooting around in his bed, wide awake at 10 when I go to check on him. Sometimes the music helps, sometimes not. Sometimes sleeping in our bed helps, sometimes not. Sometimes we rough-house before bedtime, sometimes not. Sometimes a story works, sometimes not. We even invented a golf game to play at bedtime to get to sleep. Sometimes it helps...

So this morning, after doing my utmost to get him out of bed and to the bathroom, (which was, in all, a failure), and after watching him mosey through his breakfast (I should have insisted on a Clif Bar), Hayes decided to pick a fight. He was not, hear me, NOT, going to brush his teeth. Come to think of it, he didn't really want to go to school today either, so he would just sit on the couch and refuse. Cajoling, which had worked to get his shoes on, was no longer an option, and making it a race did nothing to sway him. He simply wouldn't do it. Experience has proven to me that taking the toothbrush into my own hands (literally) is not a good solution, and that not brushing the teeth just perpetuates his idea that he doesn't really have to do it (not to mention how crazy it makes his dad). So I waited him out. I finally, as much as I hate to, threatened to spank him, and this was motivation enough.

A full hour and a half of battling and we were FINALLY on our way to school. He was 20 minutes late and missed all of show and tell, for which he was not presenting today, but damn it, we got to school. Good luck to Miss George today. As fate will have it, I am sure he'll be quite an angel for her.