Shopping with Mom

On Monday my son announces that we will go shopping early on Saturday morning because he needs clothes. On Tuesday he announces he will need polo shirts and T-shirts as well, and we have to go early. On Wednesday he announces he needs jeans and belts too, and we have to go early. On Thursday he announces he also needs shoes, and we have to go early. On Friday he announces that he also needs shorts and socks, and we have to go early. I am all happy. I like shopping, and I haven’t done any shopping with my son since he was 3. I’m so looking forward to this.

On Saturday morning I wake him up. Early. As requested.

From under the covers, he announces that, on second thought, I can go without him and buy all that stuff. He trusts my taste and judgment on his clothes. And he rolls over again.

Disappointed? What are you talking about? I just kicked his sorry @#$ out of bed and into Hamra.

And we were so early, (didn't he repeatedly request 'early'?) that all shops were still closed. Seems they don’t open till 10. And so I had to buy him breakfast at Bread Republic to kill the time. The son was still asleep. It is a normal thing, it seems. It’s all related to the production of melatonin.

There is a certain ‘darkness hormone’ called melatonin that induces sleep in all human beings. (…) This melatonin is like a sleep inducing hormone that releases itself normally at night times. This helps us go to sleep. For any adult, this hormone releases itself at about 10 pm. Unfortunately, for your poor teen, it isn’t so. Teenagers only release this hormone at about 1 pm at night. This means that even if they try to go to bed, they don’t feel like sleeping until quite late. This then has a knock on effect when they have to wake up in the morning. Think of it as an internal clock. Teenagers’ clocks are set to release melatonin much late but what happens is in the morning, when it’s time to get ready for school, the teenagers’ internal clocks still feel it is night time which is why they struggle to wake up.So don’t bother blaming your teenager if you find they are sleeping in, they need it because they can’t help it! Source

Hey, I am not blaming him for anything. It’s just that if you’ve been promising your mom for a whole week you want to go shopping with her early, you better come through.