It’s here. The day I’ve been dreading for two weeks. As of this morning, the Christmas break is over. Two weeks of family, food, fun, staying up late, sleeping in, no schedules, no pressures. Well, unless you count the fact that laundry (like rust) never sleeps, even during vacation. Ugh.

But it’s over. Back to schedules and getting up early and having to be places on time. Me…I can handle it. I’m an early riser from way back. I’ve got the internal clock of a 90 year-old. Up with the sun, to bed with the sunset… and always, without fail, sporting thick, romance-killing socks. So the dread that I felt had nothing to do with me. And everything to do with my daughter Julia.

See… Julia, who is 7, has the internal clock of a teenager. And while other kids were excited for the break so they could sit in front of early morning cartoons in their jammies slurping on bowls of cereal, Julia looked forward to it so she could “stay up late and sleep in”. 

Yep. While other neighborhood kids were tucked sound asleep in their beds, Julia rang in the New Year with the adults, dancing to the Black Eyed Peas and Pink and playing pool.  In fact, for three days running she was up after midnight. One night she was up until 2am! I never stayed up that late even in my hard-partying college days (not that I ever had any).

Well, that’s all cool and good when she can sleep in until 9 or 10am. But when the first school bell rings at 8:10 am, and her wake up time is 7am…not so great.

I tried to get her readjusted to her school schedule prior to today. But I guess two days wasn’t enough.  (Me bad.)  Because this morning was no cake walk, lemme tell you. It started with GROANS when I came into her room to announce it was time to get up. I had to come back three times and finally had to drag escort her to the potty for her morning pee. As I did she demanded like some pint-sized Gloria Swanson “No lights!”

Seriously, she was so averse to lights of any kind that I thought for sure she had taken a secret dip in the mulled wine or Edward Cullen had paid her a visit in the night.

So I let her pee in darkness. And by the time she had finished washing her hands, her eyes had adjusted enough that she allowed me to turn on ONE lamp light as she dressed. And by dressed, I mean she stood there like a limp doll and I had to dress her.

ME: What do you want to wear?

JULIA: (yawning) I dunno. Will you pick out my clothes?

ME: Okay.

I pulled out a pair of cargo pants and a pink top.  Then she said in a tone so snarky it almost instantly brought corporal punishment into vogue in our house:

JULIA: I’m not wearing THAT top!

ME: Hey, you asked me to pick out your clothes!

JULIA: (stomping over to grab it) All right, I’ll wear it.

ME: Watch your tone young lady. And apologize.

JULIA: (without an ounce of sincerity) I’m sorry.

I put the dreaded top on her. At which point the shoe drama began.

JULIA: I don’t know what shoes to wear.

ME: Put on any pair.

JULIA: I can’t. If I have PE I have to wear sneakers. But the slip-ons are more comfortable. But I’m not allowed to wear slip-ons if I have PE. But I don’t know if I even HAVE PE today. Cuz sometimes we don’t after break. And I want to be comfortable.

ME: Then put on the ones that are like slip-ons but have the laces.

The logic of my suggestion seemed to irritate her further and she gave me a killer look as she grudgingly slipped on the lace-up shoes. I let it pass for the sake of time.

I took a deep sigh of relief as I looked at her sitting there on her floor, fully dressed, thinking that the worst was over. A major hurdle was jumped and we weren’t even running late. Woo-Hoo!

Now normally I would have been worried about the “what to have for breakfast” debate which can be a difficult and tedious one when she’s in this cranky mood. But I had cleverly thought ahead and made EXTRA chocolate chip pancakes the day before with the new ladybug, butterfly and snail molds that Julia’s friend Maddy had given her for Christmas. (Williams-Sonoma – totally cute – a must-have). And I knew that even Julia at her sleepiest and grumpiest would not complain about chocolate in the shape of cute garden insects.

Leaving her to brush her teeth, I headed to my bedroom to throw on some clothes.  I stood there in the walk-in closet thinking that this morning I had been dreading hadn’t gone too bad, considering. And that we were actually on schedule.  And then I turned to find her standing there in the closet doorway, wide-eyed and horrified.

ME: What’s wrong?!

JULIA: My-my-my…. pants make noise when I walk!

And she BURST into tears! And I felt like Jamie Lee Curtis when she thought she had slain Michael Meyers and was safe but then he suddenly popped up and she wasn’t.  

And so I calmly walked my sleep-deprived munchkin back down the hall to her room to the faint SWISH SWISH SWISHING sound of her cargo pants and we changed her into jeans. Which included removing the shoes, putting them back on, switching out the top which no longer matched resulting in her getting her way anyway on the issue… and finally having to rush at fever pitch to get her lunch and snack ready to get her to school on time.

And I confess that I take great relief in the fact that for the next six hours, she and her lack-of-sleep induced irritability are somebody else’s problem.

Sorry, Mrs. Turner. I know they don’t pay you enough.