My teenager is physically incapable of getting up in the morning. Which sometimes leads the whole household into morning uproar, and just about the time I’m about to serve anger where anger is due, the house empties and I’m left yelling at the cats.

The other morning I heard, at the indecent hour of 6 a.m., the first of Little One’s alarms. It is my former alarm clock from my Corporate Hell days, and I could hear it clearly right through the walls.

You may remember that one of the many reasons I am happy about no longer working in CH is that I don’t have to get up at the forsaken hour of 6 a.m. But apparently our teen is the only person who can’t hear the alarm blaring. Thank goodness it wasn’t a fire alarm.

I can hear her get up, walk across the room, and turn it off. Ahhh. Bliss. But just as I sink into my pillow, her cell phone alarm goes off. Over and over. And yeah, it’s not that loud, but if I can hear it through two walls, she can wake up.

I resolve that no matter what, I will not become an enabler by going in and waking her up.  My mind runs through the string of consequences for her. If she is late, she’ll get a detention, which means that she’ll miss work or at least be late to that. And she owes me money. Nonetheless, I’m not going to be one of those moms that is shaking their child awake every morning because they “can’t get up on their own”.

But my self-satisfied resolutions keep me awake, wondering if she’s ever going to get up, right up until the point that the Big Guy knocks on her door and tells her she is going to be late for school. Which of course does not keep her vertical for longer than a minute.

I get up and go to work and suddenly I realize it’s 7:30 and her first class has already started – and she’s still in bed. So I storm into her room and say, “Why (in the ever-loving heck) are you still here?” Which I guess is not really the question I wanted to ask.

She storms off to school, as if I’m the one who has done something wrong. I have done something wrong. I could have had gerbils instead of children.

I’ve recently been advised to tell LO, at least four times a day, some sort of praise that begins with, “I like…” or “I appreciate…” I’m working on that.

How about, “I like how you can drag out your lateness so you avoid coming in halfway through first period”? Or, “I appreciate your ability to sleep through multiple alarms that even the neighbors can hear every morning”? How genuine does the praise have to be, anyway?