You may be thinking that since I haven’t mentioned Little One’s difficulty getting up in the morning, the situation has been solved. Au Contraire. Weeks of practice at rising to the sound of an alarm, any alarm, has not vastly improved her morning routine. And to my shame, we have resorted to pounding on her door in the morning just around seven a.m., so that she can put on her shoes and jump in her car three seconds before her first class begins. And, if she doesn’t get to school on time, we take away her beloved car keys and (gasp!) the next day she has to ride the school bus.

Our thinking? If she can’t get up at seven a.m., we’ll make her get up an hour earlier to catch the bus.

Yesterday was no exception. After a seven a.m. door-pounding wake-up call from Big Guy, she flopped herself on my bed and moaned that she didn’t feel good. What doesn’t feel good? “Everything,” she whined.

After I gave her a good dose of medicine that cures everything, I flung her off my  bed and told her to go to school. She moaned that she was sick and needed to stay home, and I absolutely refused to even entertain the idea of her ever staying home again. After a bunch more moaning I finally told her to get her butt in her car and go to school.

Then I spent the rest of the day feeling like the awful Momma who sends her sick Little One to school where she’s feverish and will probably be vomiting within the hour. Or that she’s finally had enough of my unfeeling drill sargeant parenting and she’s running away, never to return. Which made me turn on the Big Guy (who sometimes is legally required to take on the role of the Evil Stepfather), when he said, “She didn’t look sick when I woke her up.”

But you’ll all be relieved to know that she did in fact come home healthy and even gave a cheery hello to the cats who were waiting for her at the door. She apparently had forgotten her cruel Momma until I asked how she was feeling. “I’ll be fine. I always am,” she snapped. Good to hear it. You’re taking the bus tomorrow.