The sound of the siren’s song

So far the week on the new schedule is going smoothly. We had a hiccup on Monday when Autumn had a meltdown as we arrived at her school. One second she was fine and the next she was on the floor refusing to step through the door. I literally had to drag her into the school while she screamed.  The director, whose office was in close proximity to this spectacle, waved me off and told me she’d take care of Autumn if I had to go.  And so I left my child screaming in the doorway, wondering why I had chosen to sacrifice my time when she had obviously not reaped any benefit from sleeping in.

After I’d had a chance to think about things, I realized this was a change for Autumn, too.  She’s usually one of the first children at the school every morning, but now she arrives in media res and finds things have started without her.  The nearly empty school is now full of children and I think she experienced a moment of stage fright. It happens to even to the most outgoing of drama queens, I guess.

Happily Monday’s incident was not repeated yesterday or today and we’re starting to get into a groove with our morning routine.  The extra hour has been wonderful, especially since I’ve taken advantage of the time to get some exercise in.  I’ve also found a surefire way to wake Autumn without having to actually go into her room and pull the covers off of her. I simply put on Spongebob Squrepants.

The Pants, they are magic.  Just a few bars of that twangy little soundtrack will wake my daughter out of the deepest sleep.  Monday and Tuesday she stumbled out into the living room saying, “Hey, what’s going on here?” only to fall into a catatonic state at the sound of Spongebob’s tinny little laugh. She’s seen every episode a dozen times and yet she still finds the little yellow dude as appealing as she did the first time we happened upon him on Nickelodeon all those years ago.

There is a downside to using Spongebob as an alarm clock and that is he has an adverse effect on Autumn’s motor skills.  She eats slower when she’s watching the show and it took half a dozen requests to get her to put her shoes on this morning.  The simplest of tasks take twice as long when The Pants are on, so I may have to wean her off the show or find a less seductive alternative.

But today we arrived at school with several minutes to spare, which in turn put me at my desk before my scheduled start time.  That hasn’t happened in a long time and I can’t remember when I last plopped down at my desk feeling relaxed and ready to tackle the ever present mountain of paperwork.

Tagged as: Parenting, Spongebob