Mornings

I have a love-hate relationship with mornings in our house. I’ve never been a “morning person” by any stretch of the imagination, and my worst mood is usually right when I’m waking up, especially if it’s at an ungodly hour. And since the day J was put into his own bed (9 weeks old), we wake up at an ungodly hour every…single…day. He’s an early riser, no matter what we do. If he goes to by 7pm, he wakes up at 6am. If we’re out doing something special and he’s awake until 10pm, he wakes up at 6am. If we’re sleeping in a hotel on vacation…he wakes up at 5:45am. Like clockwork. TH and I laugh because we literally have not set our alarm clock in over 2 years, and we’ve never overslept. And once we’re up, the Morning Hectic Crazy Get Ready for Work/Daycare Feed the Pets Put the Recycling Out Use the Potty Fifty Times Dog Escapes Out the Front Door madness begins. I still haven’t figured out how to fit in a decent breakfast (we live on NutriGrain cereal bars, thank God J gets fed in the morning at daycare), and I must admit the majority of my makeup is put on in the parking lot at my job. I can only anticipate more madness once the baby comes and I go back to work.

On the flip side, mornings are usually my favorite time with J, especially on my weekends. His first stop every morning is in our bedroom. I guess that’s the trade-off for having a kid who sleeps well in his bed all night by himself – as soon as the sun rises he finds his way into our bed. Even though he never goes back to sleep, he will lay next to me, singing and talking and playing with the cat while I try to doze for a few more minutes. Lately, he’s been bringing what seems like an entire day’s worth of activities with him, which I find both annoying and very cute. Today, he padded into our room with his pillow, Blankie, two stuffed animals, several Hot Wheels cars, four books, and Squeaky (a squeaking cat toy that he found and thinks is for him. Yes, he sleeps with a cat toy.). After depositing all of his belongings on our bed, he’ll climb in and entertain himself, talking and singing in that preschooler stream of consciousness way, and I love listening to it. Sometimes he’ll notice that I’m not really sleeping, and we’ll have the most interesting conversations about our dreams, and things we saw or did the day before, or places we’ve been, or what we should name the baby (J’s vote: “Brother.”). We’ll sing songs, or read books, or veg out and watch Dora for awhile. As much as I hate being up that early, I can’t say I don’t have a good companion. I’m sure this is one of the many things I’ll miss when he’s older, that when he was little the first person he wanted to see every day was me.