Morning Zen

I am a ray of sunshine when I roll out of bed in the morning. Full of such sparkling ambition and optimism for the potential of the day, you might see birds and butterflies fluttering around my head while singing songs of cheer for my giddiness. I practically dance around the house as I welcome the morning sun and begin my morning routine.

This is a lie.

I am surly in the morning and stumble out of bed, moving on autopilot until caffeine is ingested. The dogs even avoid me. If someone speaks to me before that caffeine, I might acknowledge their presence with a grunt. Or a punch in the head. It depends.

Trying to get my equally surly and comatose teenager out of bed in the morning often devolves into my standing in the hall yelling that it's time he gets his ass out of bed.

Getting him to practice his morning Karate routine, before he turns on SportsCenter, is probably more than his morning teenage brain can handle and definitely more than my patience can stretch but it must be done. He's working on getting his black belt and he's very very close. I didn't pay a moderate fortune these last years for him to fall short of the goal. And not getting his black belt is not an option. He desperately wanted take Karate and get his black belt and committed to the full long term program. He's won tournaments and has a knack for the sport. I really believe that if he quit before getting his black belt he would regret the decision and not see that long term effort is worth the rewards. He is definitely an instant gratification type of kid, but what teenager isn't? As parent's we like to reinforce to the kids on seeing the big picture and how actions and consequences all intertwine. We really annoy our kids with this stuff sometimes. How do I know this? They tell us so. We've had lengthy conversations with Ace and while he insists he is committed to the cause, when we battle about practicing and working harder to master some of the more complicated movements, I have my doubts and think that banging my head against a wall might prove more fruitful.

Seeing him through to the end game is important. Being able to see him through it, coax him when he lags in enthusiasm and getting him to practice the movements is frustrating hard work for me and SuperHubby. Mostly as we struggle to retain our patience and not make it worse by exhibiting our frustrations with him. I'm not sure who's going to be more satisfied when Ace gets that black belt, him or us.

I might be able to sleep later.