2006-09-25 - 8:25 a.m.

EVEN KINDERGARTENERS HATE MONDAY

Few things in the world are less fun than preparing for school a whimpering 5 year old who does NOT want to wake up. Dressing the alternately limp and thrashing body, trying to comb out the rats in hair with arms thrown over it, convincing a glowering mini-me that the cereal in the bowl before her is the very same stuff she gobbled happily the day before...

Actually, we didn't have the cereal issue today. There is never a problem with good old, nutritionally bankrupt Count Chocula. My unhappy little Monday-hater recovered from the intense urge to crawl back into the bed, as I knew she would, and greeted her nuggets of puffed gluten and sugar with gusto. It helped that I did the voices of the cereal, who talked smack at first, but then screamed as she chewed.

I remember how it feels to want desperately to be left alone and unmoved from the bed, mainly because I still have occasion to feel that way. In any case, I combine the perfect mix of patience and forcing to get the job done in the most palatable way possible for the pissed off school-goer. I'm a sympathetic waker, not an unsympathetic wanker, and I think the kid appreciates that. I felt accomplished when I put the happy, smiling sport on the bus, twenty-five minutes after waking the very notably unhappy, fuzz-capped gremlin. Go me.

I could use a deep tissue massage and a nap.

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