NEVER FORGET THE MORNING BREATH!!!!!

I’m a morning person.  As soon as my eyes open my brain is firing on all cylinders.  Within ten seconds of rolling out of bed I could be doing multiplication tables like a world champion 4th grader, my brain just activates instantly.  I can wake up, be in a great mood, sing and dance with such enthusiasm that Jodi, quite often I’m sure, is tempted to use her flat iron on my earlobes.  Her animosity towards me in the morning is befuddling, I mean, who doesn’t love rocking out to Miley Cyrus first thing in the morning?  My chard earlobes can tell you the answer to that.  You see, Jodi and Jordan don’t like mornings, which is understandable, I think I am probably in the minority in this country.  This characteristic of Jordan’s makes him kind of tricky to wake up in the morning on the days he doesn’t do so by himself.  Sometimes the hardest part of my day is the brainstorm session that happens in the hallway outside his bedroom door while I figure out how to wake him up without him turning into raging ball of Disney blanket and face melting morning breath.  Seriously, I don’t know if it’s just him or all little kids, but his morning breath could be used in biological warfare, or maybe I could bottle it up and sell it to the S.W.A.T. Team as an alternative to tear gas.  Bad breath or not, Jordan is still tricky to wake up.  You have to be creative because the same thing doesn’t usually work over and over again and definitely not on consecutive days.  My most commonly used method is playing some music, he loves music.  Playing one of his favorite songs is usually a good opening tactic to begin the waking up process, but it doesn’t always work.  There have been a few times where I’ve tried to wake him up with one of his favorites, the Glee version of Poker Face, and he has instantly transformed into an angry burrito by rolling himself up in his blanket while yelling at me to go away.  When he goes ‘burrito’ it usually means that I’m going to have to physically harm myself to get him out of bed in a good mood.  What is it with little kids thinking the funniest thing in the world is seeing a grown up stubbing a toe or falling on the floor or just being in physical pain in general?  I think Jordan seeing me being kicked in the face by his Buzz Lightyear doll, it is NOT very soft, by the way, sends an electrical current directly to whatever part of his brain causes him to laugh.  So, when he goes ‘burrito’, I end up on the losing end of a wrestling match with Buzz, Spiderman, and the really soft cuddly blue reindeer(who, contrary to appearances, is a vicious and brutal and unrelenting warrior).  By the time the kicking of my butt is over Jordan is sitting up in bed, laughing and cheering on his stuffed friends…don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.  At this point it is usually safe to pick Jordan up and head downstairs.  Unfortunately, I tend to forget one major detail as we are walking down the stairs…
“Daddy?”
“Yes Jordan?”
Jordan puts his forehead to mine and looks right in my eyes and very breathily whispers,
“I want cereal.”

My face melts off.