How Not to Start the Morning

The boy came downstairs this morning and after saying “Good Morning”, the Wife told him he’d have to change his shirt. He had selected a nice white-blue plaid pair of shorts and a green striped shirt to “match.”

Even I knew that wasn’t a good idea.

The boy immediately balked. “Why?!?” he blurted at her, dripping with annoyance.

Upon being informed of his fashion faux-pas, he opted for the defiance approach. With gusto. The Wife measured him a moment and then put her foot down “You are NOT going to school dressed like that. Go put on the white shirt that’s on your bed.” How she knew he had a white shirt on his bed I don’t know. But her tone had clearly communicated he wouldn’t win this battle and he stomped off to his room. Literally.

I think we heard every step he took from the kitchen, up the stairs, to his room and back. I’m pretty sure I heard the sighs as well while he was changing shirts.

All this and he hadn’t even been up 10 minutes yet.

Things didn’t improve much when he got back down. The battleground simply shifted to the his sister and breakfast, where he continuously made a nuisance of himself to his sister. He’d deliberately stand in her way and stay in her way. He was taking out the frustrations of the loss of his shirt battle on his sister now. The Wife told the lass to just keep away from her brother. She also told the boy to knock it off or he’d end up in the corner for awhile.

After breakfast, the battle shifted to who sat where to watch morning cartoons. Things didn’t finally settle down until the third or forth Woody Woodpecker skit.

Where was I the whole time, you might be wondering? I was on the periphery catching up on news and drinking a cup of coffee. The Wife was handling things fine and my getting involved would have only resulted in telling the boy to go to school with no clothes on, both kids being grounded for the rest of their lives, TV privileges revoked and the cancellation of Christmas. Permanently. Oh, and I’d have threatened to shoot the Tooth Fairy as well.

That’s the difference between an adult and a child: one of us knows how to wake up in the morning.