It’s always a shock when your kids get up for school on time. Or to be precise, ahead of time. On a Monday no less. Not even six yet and the lights in the kitchen are creeping through the bedroom door. The alarm has yet to do its duty. The warmth of the long night in between layers of cotton is the last thing I want to give up.

But I do.

The voices from the breakfast table sounds like an early morning sit-com.

“Do you think I should wear these brown shoes to school? Are they cool?” asks my nearly 14 year old daughter.

“Wearing those shoes will not make you cool- you don’t even know what cool is!” replies the worldly 11year year old boy. “I’m cool!”

“You’re a dork”

“Takes one to know one” and the conversation is all downhill from there.

So like millions of other parents since the dawn of time we swing in to the morning routine. Our schedule includes an early morning trip to the hospital lab for blood tests. The nearly fourteen year old girl gets check twice a week to see how the kidney her dad forked over just 10 weeks ago is doing. The 11year old boy tags along because mom is teaching today.

“Why can’t I just stay home and watch SpongeBob until the bus comes” he asks.

“Because” I say, using a term that was no doubt invented my some all-knowing being called a parent.

“Because, why?” he shoots back.

“Because is all you need to know.” I reply, knowing that I have conquered the moment and ensured that he will use the same logic when his offspring want to stay home until the bus comes. I hope that the sponge guy is a mere memory by then.

We hit the lab later than Mom ever does and the 13 year old going on 40 lets me know it. And Mom never parks here. And Mom never goes in those doors and….before she can point out another one of my shortcomings I remind her that Dads do things differently.

“Jeez, I couldn’t figure that one out” she says in a tone that only someone under the age of 15 can relate to. Maybe I should of left her home to watch cartoons.

We check in and a roomful of eyes sizes us up. Nothing like a couple of kids hyped up on breakfast cereal to liven up a waiting room. The 11 year old is giggling over the bad breath ads in Readers Digest while the almost 14 year old is asking me why the women at the check in counter told a man in a wheelchair to have a seat if he already has one?

There are some questions I simply do not have answers for.

So after the deed is done and we hit Uncle Donald’s (McDonalds) and shove some more carbs into the system, we head toward school. The talk turns to her first basketball game and his drum lessons, which he proceeds to display on the dashboard to every song.

It’s nearly 8:15.

Late to school means walking them in and getting passes to class. The nice lady at the front desk asks why we are late. My forty three-year-old mind searches for a really good one. We were chased by lions, we decided to see what the office looks like at this time of the morning, the dog ate their home work and we had to piece it together after his morning walk. I almost used the last one but we don’t have a dog so I just told the truth.

She had to get a blood test and 30 minutes of SpongeBob in the morning is not conducive to good mental health.

The nice lady buys it and with a flick of the pen both of my charges are off on their own routines.

I walk out into the brilliant sunshine and take a deep breath of cold air.

Success!