Why I'd Rather Have a 'Flower'

I stared at one of my best mommy-friends over the rim of my non-fat, decaf, caramel latté. The morning's events had been nothing short of horrendous and a sit-down with her was just what I needed.

I didn't want to rant; I'd already done that earlier at home. The fight was now over and sadly I wasn't sure who had won. The kids were still drawing breath when I'd dropped them at school and I had lived to tell the story. Okay I decided on a sigh, it was a tie.

"You look like you’ve been dragged through a donut-hole backwards,” Maggie stated unapologetically as she slid into the booth across from me.  “What did your kids do to you this morning?”

"Thanks for nothing,” I shot back. “And to answer your question it’s not this morning - it’s every morning! My kids have no problem getting up at the crack-of-stupid on a weekend when we have nowhere to be. But try to get them up for school and that’s a whole other story."

"Tell me what happens right now?”

Maggie didn’t realize it but I noted that she had started tapping her finger against those awesome veneers of hers; the tell-tale sign that she was becoming agitated. Perhaps now was not a good time to discuss my inadequacies as a mommy after all. But it was too late.

“What’s your expectation of the kids? Do you have a reward-system in place?”

Expectation? Reward-system? This was clearly another lesson that I, as their mother, had failed to teach them – If you met expectation A, you would earn reward B. A simple concept but not always easy to implement.

"No," I said sheepishly, "I’ve got nothing. I go into the kids' rooms, turn on the lights, open the curtains, and tell them it's time to get up. They know I'm going downstairs to make coffee and that they’ll get a five-minute warning before I'm on my way back up. In those five-minutes my "expectation" is that they get out of bed and do three basic things: go pee, get dressed, and brush their teeth. But that never happens. I go back upstairs and they're still in bed. So now I'm annoyed and yelling that if they don’t get up they're going to be late for school. I stalk to my room, get myself dressed, head back across the hall and guess what? They're still in bed! Now I'm righteously ticked and threatening to take them to school in their pajamas without breakfast. On a good day, all of that combined might motivate them to finally get out of bed!”

Feeling completely deflated I sank back onto the cold vinyl of the booth and took a deep, calming breath.

"Alrighty then," Maggie said slapping her hand on the table, "time to turn this ship around. Clearly this situation is not working for you!"

God I loved that about her. Maggie had been at this mothering-gig a lot longer than me and believed, dare I say it, that it was okay to put a mommy and her happiness first. She set rules and expectations that made her life easier even if her kids didn't like it. And the best part? She felt no guilt! It’s no wonder I aspired to be like my girl Mags.

"I wouldn't even go into their rooms to wake them," Maggie advised. "They need to be doing that for themselves. I sleep-trained my kids with one of those alarm clocks that turns color when it's time for them to get out of bed. If I'm upstairs when they get up I don't even speak to them. I'll give them a visual prompt if they're not staying on task but I don't speak. They know what's expected and if they want to earn that reward they’ll do it.”

Sleep-trained? God I loved that about her, too. Maggie always had a plan; always had a solution to the problem. Me? I had good intentions.

A year prior I'd bought the kids those fancy Discovery clocks for Christmas.  My daughter got the flower and my son got the rocket ship. The “intent” had been that the kids would learn how to tell time, wake up to the alarm, and enjoy the images of the galaxies, peace-signs and such that those clocks projected onto the walls and ceilings. I was sure we had set the time on the clocks and enjoyed the projections, but had we ever tried using the alarm function? I couldn’t remember.

"We don't have clocks that change color, but we do have alarm clocks - a flower for Bronwyn and a rocket ship for Brennen."

"Perfect!" Maggie exclaimed, and then we set about formulating a plan. 

One week later I again stared at one of my best mommy-friends over the rim of my non-fat, decaf, caramel latté. "Well?" Maggie prompted, "How did things work out with the alarm clocks?"

"Alright, I guess. I made a really big, over-the-top production about how great it would be to wake up to their alarm clocks, just like we discussed. I told the kids how big they were getting and that mommy would be so proud of them if they could wake up on their own."

"Sounds great so far."

"Yeah, I thought I was pretty great too. Academy award winning ‘great’," I laughed. "So I let the kids pick the morning that they were going to try out their alarms. I gave them a choice and let them feel like they had some control." I had pulled out every trick the nice social-worker had taught me for this one.

"The kids brought me their clocks and as I was setting the alarm on Brennen's I told him how awesome it was going to be; how his rocket was going to go off in the morning and wake him up. I started setting Bronwyn's alarm and I told her the same. I told her how awesome it was going to be; how her flower … and then I didn't know what to say. Her flower wasn’t going to do anything. It just was."

Suddenly Maggie was laughing uncontrollably. “You’re incredible,” she croaked. “You’ve just unknowingly described for your kids what separates the sexes. Boys have exploding rockets – amazing! Girls have flowers – the end.

Clearly our plan was going to require further thought. Fortunately I had the entire summer vacation to work it out. Shaking my head and laughing uncontrollably myself, I raised my mug and clanked it against Maggie’s.

“I’d rather have a flower anyway,” I whispered conspiratorially. “I like the idea of having something that lasts for more than one go-around and doesn’t require re-fueling!”

The end.