Sometimes He Surprises Me

Now that we've been in school for a week the excitement and newness has worn off.  Last week the kids were pretty gung ho and willing to wake up and get dressed, eat and get to school with plenty of time to spare.  We had so much time that I was going to write a post (in fact I thought I did) about how fabulous the mornings were and that I got so much done now waking up at 6 a.m. instead of 7 a.m. and how the girls had so much time to dress and eat and even play in the morning.  Nothing but time.

That wonderful honeymoon period has already worn off.  On Monday morning Andy walked grumpily into the kitchen and informed me he was tired of waking up at 6 a.m.  No duh, dude, who do you think is getting up with you?  Only about 150 more days to go this year and then it's even more permanent when he is actually a full time student at the middle school and he will have to get up even earlier when he goes to high school.  Ugh.  All he does is read on his iPad in the morning while I'm hanging out with him, can't he just do it all by himself?

Another thing I forgot about was how tired Sarah gets when she is at school all day and how cranky she is when she gets home from school.  Watch out.  She's fine as long as I don't make her do anything on her to do list, like homework or taking her vitamins or feeding her fish, but when I do ask that's when all the screaming starts.  From both of us.  I really didn't need to yell at the kids very much this summer but within the last few days it's all coming back to me.  Part of it is the kids and part of it is the fact that now I am getting up earlier but I am not going to bed any earlier.  I am working on it but old habits die hard.

So we were all a little unhappy on Monday evening and Charlie was on a trip for work and I really didn't want to put the girls to bed and Andy knew it.  All three of the kids were actually playing nicely together for once and Andy came up to me after I had told the girls a few times it was time for bed with no action and said, "I'll take care of this one."  He got the girls upstairs, got them in their pajamas with teeth brushed and was reading to them when I finally walked into the room to make sure I didn't need to do anything before kissing everyone goodnight.  The girls were actually mad at me for coming in too early and spoiling the surprise because they wanted to be in bed and all tucked in before I came in the room.  That almost started another battle but instead I just left them alone to complete their plan.

Andy is a very mature kid, but sometimes he acts very much like an eleven year old boy.  Silly and goofy and self centered and loud and just plain weird.  I'll get frustrated with him, and then see some of his classmates and how immature they are and realize how lucky I am, even on his worst days.  He's starting to hit puberty which is a whole other animal, but in the end he is a great kid.  And every once in a while he pulls something like this to show me just how much he really loves me.