Rise and Shine

Go ahead! Sing!

How do you 'rise and shine'?

Throughout my life, I have been summoned from sleep in various ways.

Some gentle.

Some strident.

All annoying.

My mom, a member of the 'never wake a sleeping child' sorority, let me sleep in till I woke up on my own.

Well, until I went to school, that is.

Then, her usual wake up call consisted of, “Diane! Get up! The bus will be here in ten minutes!”

Okay, I will admit that she usually called me much earlier than that.

I just wasn't listening.

Ahem.

Dad's form of summoning consisted of one word. “Spring!” And it was always obeyed instantly.

Mom, you could coax and cajole, but dad?

You moved.

Because.

Often, I found myself standing beside my bed with no idea of how I got there.

My Husby took a more creative, albeit (Oooh! Good word!) equally annoying route.

He would sing.

Badly.

And loudly.

In our house, 'Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!', the usually bright, happy, uplifting anthem from Oklahoma, sounded more like . . . honking.

Or a chorus of frogs.

Or ball-bearings rolling around in a hubcap. (Don't ask me how I know what that sounds like.)

His 'singing' brought instant . . . let me put it this way: No one slept through it.

“Dad! Aarrgghh!”

Success.

Moving ahead . . .

Our oldest son had recently become engaged.

To a beautiful girl.

Our entire family had traveled to Fort Macleod to a reunion.

Our future daughter-in-law was bunking with our other daughters.

It was morning.

There was far too much sleeping going on.

My Husby decided he needed to do something proactive.

He went to the door of the girls' room.

Cleared his throat.

And started singing.

You really haven't heard 'Oh What a Beautiful Morning' sung quite like he sings it.

Our future daughter-in-law looked at her future sister-in-law. “Does he always do this?”

FSIL's answer was muffled by the pillow over her head. “Yes.”

“Oh. Maybe I'll have to rethink my joining this family.”

She did join. She comes from hardy stock.

I thought I'd tell you that in case you were worried.

Back to my story . . .

This morning, my alarm woke me.

“Bla-Bla-Bla-Bla-Bla-Bla . . .”

Suddenly I missed my Mom's repeated time updates, my Dad's single word warnings and my Husby's singing.

It's all a matter of perspective.