How to be the World’s Worst Mum Step Fourteen: Mornings.

 

Teenagers are unable to cope with the lemony light of morning. They hunker down under goose feather duvets with tight shut eyes.

School days are the worst.

Alarms have gone off. The radio has peeped and a Teenagery arm has stretched out and shut down its chatter.

I try different tactics. I re-enact the way Frodo is greeted by Gandolf, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and Merry and Pippin as he wakes up in bed after being rescued from Mt Doom…the spoof version playing all the characters one by one.

I sing ‘The Star Bangled Banner’ with none of the original words.

I launch furry cuddly toys on top of the Teenagery unstirring heap.

I lie and tell him that the bath water is running and that it will overflow if he doesn’t get into the bathroom asap; though having had bath water coming through the kitchen ceiling once before from an over-flowing bath he knows that it’s an idle threat and that I’d never dare that tactic again.

I tell him that it’s an hour later than it is.

I keep going back to the unstirring Teenager with time checks and threats of the imminent leaving of Mum’s taxi service.

Nothing works.

Then from somewhere underneath the duvet comes a voice that explains exactly what I’m doing wrong:

‘I’ll get out of bed faster if you didn’t keep waking me up!’
He tells me, before falling back into an even deeper sleep.