Late Again

Bad Habit No. 1
I always feel distressed when I know you were going to be late for school. Like yesterday. It was Monday and you are supposed to be on time for the Monday ceremony. But no, you were late for nearly half an hour. When I got home at 8 pm, your nanny told me that the school wouldn’t let late comers to come in until the Monday ceremony was over. So I had a chat with you:

Me: Honey, you cannot be late for school, especially on Mondays when you have the Monday ceremony
You: But it’s okay mama, the teachers were not angry with me
Me: Well, it doesn’t feel nice isn’t it when your friends are in there and they won’t let you in?
You: Many of my friends were late too: Ube, Pancar, Rafi. So we played together, and we had a good time. So, it’ okay, mama
Me: But next time you have to be on time
You: But I love playing with my friends who are also late

Hm...., I cannot go on talking about this. He got a point, you know.

Bad Habit No. 2
The reason of you being late for school is because it is very difficult for you to wake up in the morning. To be on time, you need to go off by 06.40 latest. Theoretically, you would need 10 minutes to bath and 5 minutes to get dressed. And you can always have your breakfast on the car. So theoretically (again), if I try to wake you up at 05.45, it should be okay. We should have plenty of time to chit chat, play a bit and spend longer time bathing (since you love playing with bubles from your bath foam so much)

But it is so damn difficult to wake you up. And I'm not kidding when I said you sleep like a log! Half of me want to let you sleep, but the other half said that I need to discipline you. For the first half an hour, I usually play it soft, telling you funny stories, tickling your toes, kissing your hairs and softly pat your cheeks. Sometimes it works, you wake up smiling and we can start a good day. But when after half an hour of trying to wake you up and you still sleep like a log, what do you expect me to do? I begin shouting and start threatening you with a day without TV or your other favorite toy. And usually it ends up by you not taking a bath and I’m dressing you up while you are still in bed. Bad, bad habit …….

Bad Habit No. 3
The reason of you not being able to wake up in the morning is because you sleep late at nights. Like last night. I came home at 8pm, finding you playing in the bedroom. We then did your homework, coz you always refuse to do it without me. It was just five line of writing, yet it took you an hour. Then we played some games again, had a chat for awhile and finally you doze off after I told you a story at 10 pm.

So what should I do? Do I have to come home earlier every day? Even so, you don’t get sleepy until 10 or 11 pm, even when you don’t have afternoon naps. And for me, I really enjoy spending time with you after a day in the office.

This is like a circle of bad habits. I need to break it somewhere.

(Written on 29 August 2006, on my way to the office)