I am not a morning person. I am not one of those people who talk about how liberating it is to rise early and accompolish half a day's work before the sun even rises. I am not the wife who gets up with her husband to get his coffee ready to hand to him as he walks out the door. I am not an early bird working to get that worm. I am a vampire late nighter, preferring to get things done in the late evening long after the sun has gone to bed and to not rise before 9:00 AM because that is just plain crazy. My friends and family know not to call my house before 10:00 AM on the weekends, holidays, and summers because I will not answer.
I can get up if I have to and do so without grumpiness. I had to wake at seven as a child for school and in the summers for swim team practice. I had to do the same when I was coaching, but I was quite careful in my later years upon scheduling my college classes later in the day and getting jobs that required a later start. My job after moving to Florida didn't even begin until 1:00 PM and ended at 9:30 PM upon which time my co-worker and I would then go out and have dinner and drinks. When I began dating my husband he was a triathelete who thought getting up at five in the morning for a bike, run or swim was very logical. I did it once with him, rising before six to swim the gulf and watch the sun come up before going for breakfast. It was nice, but I didn't join him again. Eventually I brought him over to the dark side, but the addition of the beast is slowly changing him back.
My real last experience with early mornings was after Madison was born. I spent many an early morning watching the five o'clock news and getting the traffic updates while nursing a child who believed in taking her time. She too, like her father, came to her senses in the end and now roams the darkness, sometimes later then myself. Unfortunately, yesterday our late nights and even later mornings came to an end.
School started and with it came a new start time for Madison. Her high school begins at 7:00 which means she has to be at school by 6:45 which means she has to roll out of bed an hour earlier. Which then means her mother has to roll out of bed at the same time in order to drag her out of bed to get to school on time. My clock is now set at 5:45 AM and I can tell you that not even the sun believes in getting up that early. The reasoning behind this genius call has to do with school busing. The school board has gone back and forth with what group of kids should get the early start, and despite calls for it being the elementary children who are usually up early anyway, the board keeps it with the high schoolers because of after school activities and jobs.
The bottom line is that I'm having to get up early. While yesterday was hard today was even harder. I keep cheering myself on enjoying coffee and blogging in the stillness of the house after Madison is gone and before Darcy awakens, but the pounding in my head and behind my eyes makes my pom poms wither and sag. Last night I was ready for bed by 9:30 PM and in bed by 10:15 PM, the only saving grace being that I was asleep by 10:17 PM, something that never happens because my brain usually doesn't shut off after I retire for the night. Last night my brain was asleep before six and it was only through sheer strength that my body stayed on my feet for four more hours. I am also a person that must have eight hours of sleep or eventually it will all catch up on me and then everyone must look out. So my new bedtime is going to have to match my new wake time and that is going to interfere with quite a few things in my life namely Monday Night Football.
I do have the luxuary of being a SAHM and thus I can take a nap during the early morning or afternoon, but I also must get things done here at home and in my life. I have lunches and movies to go to errands to run, chores to do, and personal training that must all be attended to. I'm not sure how I will make it, and believe me I'm already trying to tweak things, but for now I have no choice but to suck it up and hope I don't mistake salt for sugar when preparing dinner with my brain gone and my eyes closed. Lord help us all!
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