Good Morning Ginni

I don’t need an alarm clock. I have one and I rely on it, but I don’t need it.

My husband gets up at the same time every day and he makes enough noise to wake me up and keep me up. On most days Haley wakes up soon after that and if I am already sort of awake I can hear her playing on the computer. If I concentrate I can hear her big sister getting ready down the hall.

My husband's alarm does not go off he just knows when to get up. It is one of the annoying things I love about him. He gets up and blasts in to the bathroom and closes the door and turns on the fan. He takes a shower and then he shaves. Then he blasts through the bathroom door and closes it, then blasts through the bedroom door and closes it. Sometimes I fall back asleep during some of that and wake up again and fall back to sleep again.

Eventually my alarm clock goes off, it is a radio alarm and it goes off at a time of day when the jocks are talking or laughing or giving me some important news tidbit. I listen. I hit snooze. My husband gets the paper and slams the door. He pours breakfast cereal and eats it. He makes toast and puts away the dishes, slamming cabinet doors. My alarm goes off again and I find out what the weather will be like. I hit snooze. I hear big sister leave the house. The alarm goes off again. I turn it off and I get up. I know what you are thinking, “Why don’t you just get up when your husband gets up?” or “Why don’t you get up when the alarm goes off the first time? Yeah, I know. I don’t though. This is what I do. Every day. Structure is important, you know.

Today Haley was up. I could hear her through the wall that separates our room from hers. She was sighing, or yawning, or what I don’t know. It is the latest sound that she makes, over and over and over. I think it may be kind of like a tic. It started off innocently enough. A heavy sigh one morning or a really loud yawn, I may have even commented on it. I probably said something like ”Wow! That was a big yawn.” Next thing I know she is sigh/yawning all the time, every two minutes. Incessantly. It’s her thing now.

My husband comes in the room and says “Haley’s up.” I reply, “I know. I can hear her.” When I am done with my morning routine and leave my room she is not at the computer like she usually is. I look in her room and she is still lying in her bed. I smile and say “Time to get up, Sleepy Head” and she says “Good Morning (my heart skips a beat) Ginni.” What? My name is not Ginni. I say “Good Morning Mom” with a tiny inflection in my voice, which is how I usually get her to repeat after me. “Good Morning Ginni.” Crap!

“Haley, say Good Morning Mom.”

Now she just looks at me and says “Ginni.” I sigh. As we head down the stairs I explain to her that although I know she is excited to go to school and say “Good Morning” to Ginni I would really like it if she said “Good Morning” to me when she sees me. This obviously has no effect on her because by the time she has told me which video she wants to watch, which cereal she wants to eat and has crawled up on to the bar stool at the table where she will eat her cereal she states emphatically once again “Good Morning Ginni” and smiles. I look at her. I smile. She says “Ginni.” I say “Haley, I don’t know what you want me say.”

I know that wasn’t it, but by now I am tired of this game. I just say “Are you excited to go to school today?” to which she replies “Yeah” and we eat our cereal quietly.