How many different ways can a person be woken up in the morning? Yesterday I was woken by Rachel, with gentle little kisses on the cheek and my face being stroked. Followed, by the less serene, “I WANT BREAKFAST!” Today, it was by a calculator being shoved in my face.
Last week, by Emilia shouting: “Mummy! Rachel has done a poo on the toilet and is stirring it up with the toilet brush. Can you come!”
Frequently, it is with books smashed down over my head and instructions from Rachel; “Read it, READ IT ME!” which get more insistent and increase in volume and violence, the longer I try to ignore her. “This one, Mummy, THIS ONE!,” whack, whack, as I try to retreat further under the duvet.
I am sure it is an experience that I inflicted on my parents too. In fact, I know it is, or at least my brother did, as my Father documented in 1978.
“One morning, I am aroused from my sleep by cries of:
“Take aim, FIRE”
and a piece of chewed up plasticine hit me in the head.
Sometimes, I wake up to find a farm has been built around my head on the pillow”
Clearly, Dad was an even heavier sleeper than me. I am thinking things might be a lot worse in our house if it weren’t for the TV option first thing in the morning.
The clocks changing, work both ways for me, when they go back, everyone gets a lie in, as it is, by the clock, earlier than you think it is and we can all go back to bed. When they go forward, if the children wake at 6am, it is 7am on the clock, which is psychologically much better, and you don’t feel so cheated. Every way’s a winner.
What you don’t want to do, is what Mark did this morning, when he started his first early shift since the clocks changed. I was startled to find him in the bathroom when I got up in the night for a drink of water. Bleary eyed, I asked him:
“Do you normally get ready for work at half past 3?”
“Oh no! Is that the time? Do you think I didn’t change my alarm clock?”
What a doofus!
Things can only get better though. Emilia, aged 7, made for me, her first unsupervised cup of tea this morning, along with a bowl of Weetabix, and brought it on a tray, to the breakfast table.
Not long now and we will be being brought cups of tea in bed in the morning, rather than calculators, wet wipes, a variety of toys, pens, and books over the head.
Two more 'rude awakenings' I read about in Dad's record of our antics as children; one was Nick waking Dad at 4 am to ask him whether he realised that spoon spelt backwards was noops, and another time, when he was older, Nick felt the need to get him up at 6am to sell him some raffle tickets(as the stubs were due in that day.)
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