MINOT — Now that school has started again, one of my favorite parts of the day arrives about 7 a.m.

That’s when I walk down the hall to the bedrooms where my daughter, Layla, 17, and son, Cooper, 10, are sleeping.

I wake my son first. He can be indolent in the mornings. Reticent to rise and shine, so we have a routine. If I start talking to him about his breakfast — Do you want cereal or a bagel? Milk or orange juice? — he’ll leave off the complaints about being tired and not wanting to go to school, and start getting ready.

I don’t know why it works.

Once Coop is moving toward a stand-up sort of consciousness, I knock on his sister’s door. Layla is practically an adult now. She doesn’t need her dad to shepherd her through the morning.

She doesn’t need me to do much of anything for he

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