Mom on the Run: Back-to-school means it’s time for wakey, wakey

The alert pops up on my computer at work. I check the clock, then pick up the phone: It's 9:30 a.m. and time to wrangle my son out of bed. I put the phone handset on his bedside table when I left this morning, and now it's time to enact my plan.

I dial, and Ring! Ring! Ring! Three rings? How is that possible? This is the phone from next to my bed, the phone that, with one late-night jangle, makes me jump a foot in the air. How can my son, whose head should be just inches from the receiver, be sleeping through this? Has he already gotten up? Is he in the bathroom, in the shower and can't hear the phone?

I've just decided that's impossible—my 13-year-old, up at 9:30 a.m. on the last week of summer? No way!—and I'm about to hang up before the answering machine whirrs on when there's a click, a pause, and a slow grunt: "'Lo?"

"Good morning!" I'm deliberately chirpy and cheery. "Wakey wakey!" I trill. There's another silence, a long one this time, and I listen hard, making sure he hasn't hung up. Finally there's an unintelligible sound, kind of a wheezy moan.

"What?" I ask. "Come on, buddy, I need you to wake up."

Another silence, then a sound that's vaguely like, "Why." Not a question, just an exhaled, pained statement from a groggy boy.

"Because. Because it's 9:30 in the morning and you have to get up. Come on, sit up. Sit up and open your eyes." I wait a minute, listening intently. I hear some shuffling and I'm hoping he's blindly obeyed and sat up, but he might have just rolled over, taking the phone with him.

"Are you sitting up?"

"Uh-huh." It's muffled, but the right answer.

"Are your eyes open?"

"Unh-unh."

"Come on, open your eyes. You can do it."

Another silence, then, "OK," he grunts.

"Great. OK, now talk to me. I want a full sentence or two. Prove you're awake."

"I'm awake!" He's forceful this time, annoyed, "Gosh! Why'd you wake me up?"

"Because it's time to get up. Go on, get moving. Take a shower and go downstairs. I left you a list."

His response groan is deep and long, though I don't think my lists are ever that bad: walk the dog, put away your laundry, empty the dishwasher.

"What time is it?"

"It's 9:30."

"In the morning? Why'd you get me up so early?" My son sounds downright hostile now, and I'm glad I'm not within arm's reach.

"I'm weaning you. Remember? School starts in a few days, and you've been sleeping until 11—five whole hours longer than you're going to have to get up next week. You need to practice."

"Mom! No I don't!" I hear a thump—fist into mattress? Head into pillow?—and then, "Darn it, now I'm awake!"

"Excellent. Get to that list. And have a great day!" I chirp cheerfully again as I hang up, my work here done. And I open my computer calendar to set a reminder to call him tomorrow … at 9 a.m.

Lianne Wilkens lives with her family in Manassas. She can be reached at .