No More Miss Late Girl

Waking up at 6:30 is an adjustment, for two little girls who like to sleep until 8, and for a mom and dad who proudly embraced their offspring's love of a good nights sleep. When I opened their door on day one they both jumped out of bed, stripped off their pajamas and climbed happily into their first day of school clothing selections (carefully laid out the night before). Today Mary groggily rolled over and fell onto the floor. Kate pulled the quilt over her head in a quiet refusal, she was not getting up. After several rounds of "I Hate To Get Up In The Morning" and one offer to throw ice water on her head, she slung her long legs over the side and stood, like a baby deer, taking the few necessary steps before falling into her sister's bed.

Who can blame them? I hated getting up for school, to the very depth of me I hated it, and was thus constantly late, a habit I stuck with my entire life. Until now, I can't let them be the late kids, that was painful. Mr. Nelson made me actually bring my father into the classroom so that he could be reprimanded also, Dad being the driving force behind Late Girl. He was Late Man, his entire life, wasn't on time once. Although he did beat me to the church, I was late to my own wedding.

I once missed an entire Time Management Seminar; racing to get there I could not bare to walk into a conference room well into a discussion on better managing your time, 10 minutes late. First pitch eluded me for years, until I married Jack. Sadly it's not just mornings, I'm late for dinner, afternoon meetings, if there is a scheduled time to be somewhere, I'll be late.

But not now, I cannot doom my children to a life of missing the first few minutes of everything there is to do and see in the world. And so we get up, and foggily dress, yawning and stretching for most of the morning. It's a race, every single day, that last minute sprint to get out the door, but we do it. Three weeks in and not late once, a couple close calls but we've been there every day for the bell and the march into the classroom.

My Mom playground friends have all been late, each one having to take the walk of shame to the office for the tardy slip before escorting their child to class. Not me, without being smug I commiserate but this cheese stands alone, not one late slip. Of course they don't really know me, they have no idea that I'm the Mom formerly known as Late Girl. Hopefully they never will.