There’s nothing like the first day of school after a long vacation, especially as bedtime sneaks later and later into the night. The transition is brutal—for parents and kids alike.

When Monday morning rolled around, I practically had to flip Alice out of bed with a spatula. There we were, twenty minutes from the time we needed to leave for school, and Alice was on her bed, pasted to the sheets.

I shook her. No response. That I didn’t panic and get ready to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is a mark of how far I’ve come as a mother. I don’t immediately assume my children have died just because they’re deep asleep. Progress! I’ll take it where I find it.

I lay down in bed next to her and started whispering in her ear. 

“Alice...Alice...it’s time to wake up.”

This time, I did get a response.

If it’s possible to shout and whisper at the same time, that’s what she did.

“NO. I’M TIRED.”

Then she rolled over.

This is the time where a parent starts to feel the first stirrings of panic, stirrings that can often lead to the dreaded loud voice. I had nineteen minutes to feed her, get her in her clothes, brush her teeth, and into the classroom. That is not a lot of time. Not nearly enough. AAAAA!

And then I remembered something from my middle school years. My favorite math teacher had us lie in a circle with our heads on each other’s stomachs during a school camping trip. We said, “No. No. No. No. No.”

As you say this word, your stomach bounces up and down. If you do this enough times, you start to laugh.

Using my hands as giant spatulas, I lifted Alice on top of me. She’s still small enough to fit there, miraculously. And I said, “No. No. No. No. No.” Her eyes opened.

And pretty soon, we were laughing, then sitting up, then walking down to the kitchen for a quick breakfast.

Not long after that, we were off to school. Lucy and Alice held hands and ran ahead of me. I watched them race away, looking big and small at the same time, and I was glad that I remembered what it was like to be a child, at least for one morning.

It’s sometimes so easy to get caught up in our grownup world, with all the schedules and responsibilities. And so much about this business of parenting comes to us from pediatricians and scientists and behavioral therapists. We’re supposed to be consistent, be clear, be firm, be gentle, be kind, be these paragons when we are at the same time working and managing a family.

It’s not easy. But probably more often than we realize, the best training of all comes from our childhoods. We know what it’s like to be five years old and sleepy and not quite ready for school. We know what we found hilarious when we were in kindergarten, in third grade, in middle school. And there’s nothing like starting the day with a belly laugh—for moms and kids alike.