And the Grammy goes to Mom, dammit

A funny little share, because sometimes you find your mojo in the strangest of places. Like your singing voice, which is, ahem, not the best.

Maybe yours is. Mine is not. It's not the worst, but I won't be trying out for The Voice in this lifetime. I do, however, like to sing my fool head off alone in the car. I'm basically a rock star in there. Ya'll don't even know.

But my little boy laughs and laughs when I sing, especially when I'm just making up silly songs. I decided to apply this tactic to morning time.

It should be noted that I rarely feel like singing in the morning.

It should also be noted that my son is almost 5, but in the realm of waking up, he's more like 16. He needs at least 20 minutes of quiet time on the couch before he can get his adorable butt dressed. And that's AFTER I get him out of bed, which requires a very delicate cocktail of sweet whispering and back rubbing. I gauge his response to these efforts and if he seems receptive, I might start very gently tickling him or making jokes. If he grunts and curls up into a ball and pulls his blanket over his head, all tickling efforts must cease immediately or no one is leaving the house for at least an hour. If he squirms and stretches, I keep it up until he starts giggling. Once he's giggling, I say something like, ok little man, I'm going to turn the light on now.

Sometimes turning the light on is a complete reset. Back to start. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Sometimes he slips from bed dragging his minion blanket behind him, on his way to the couch for the aforementioned quiet time.

Sometimes he wails NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I mean, who can't relate?

I was tired myself this morning, and in the very early stages of this process, I decided, on a whim, to start singing. I made up a song. It's silly and it worked:

Little Jackson in his big boy pants,
hates when his mama does the wake-up dance,
hates it so much that he cries and pouts
til his mama has to scream and shout!

Note: mama never screams and shouts, but this line made Jax pop upright in bed and squeal laughing. He made me sing it again, which omg of course I immediately did, and by the time I was starting the third round of it, he was singing along and taking his jammies off without being prompted.

Wednesday: check. I feel I should get a pass on the rest of the day.

What do you do to get your kids movin and groovin in the AM? What do you do to get them to bed, for that matter?--I have a whole other saga about Jax's bedtime refusal phase, during which I was also a parenting genius. :D