Mom on the Run: Kids can ruin the most airtight of plans

Lianne Wilkens/Columnist
Published: August 24, 2008

It's 12:34 a.m.—midnight!—when the bedside phone rings.

"Mom?"

I blink, and grunt into the receiver.

"I'm home, but I don't have my key. Can you let me in?" Luckily my body slips into autopilot while my brain still struggles to turn on. I lean out of bed, open my bed-room door, and squint against the light as I feel my way down the stairs.

I'm almost awake as I open the front door. My daughter, laden with blankets from her con-cert lawn seats, is as alert as I am groggy, and she laughs as she pushes past me. "I called him and called him. I bet he fell asleep."

Right. Her brother. Blearily I remember: the late-night check-in, my brilliant idea. It occurred to me shortly after realizing my 16-year-old would be out super late on a weeknight, when I have work though my kids are still on summer vacation. Midnight?! I thought. But I need to sleep! So … "You're up late every night anyway," I said to my 13-year-old son. "I can go to bed, and you can be in charge. She'll call you, you wait up for her, and wake me if there's a problem."

Everyone had nodded; good plan, right? The daughter gets to go to a concert and stay out late; the son for once gets a free pass on staying up until the wee hours of the morning; I get to sleep and spare us all my crankiness the next day. "Just make sure and lock the front door."

And it worked beautifully. At 10 p.m. I reminded my daughter via text message: "Going to bed. Contact your brother when you leave." I reminded my son: "Pay attention to what time she calls; she will not take more than an hour to get home. Wake me up if there are any problems or if she's late."

"OK," the daughter texted back.

"OK," said the son.

So off I went to bed, where I shut my bedroom door against the light and noise of the downstairs TV and fell quickly into the confident slumber of someone who doesn't think she has to get back up in an hour or two.

Until the phone rang, when, despite the brilliant plan, I find myself stumbling down the stairs and opening the door for someone who was out having fun until late.

Together we follow the light and noise down the hall, me rubbing my eyes and my daughter chattering on about how she tried to call her brother, and she didn't want to wake me, and she even knocked lightly on the front door, but ….

And there he is, on the sofa. My son is half-sitting, half-slumped into the pillows where he landed when sleep overcame him. His mouth is hanging open and he's snoring, loud even over the chaos of the old football game on TV.

I lean over, awake enough now to smile at the phone clutched in my son's hand, and grab his knee to shake him awake. My brain switches fully on, recognizes that the wrong person is sleeping … and starts working on improving the brilliant plan.

Lianne Wilkens lives with her family in Manassas. She can be reached at .