Sunday, November 9, 2008

Day In And Day Out

Are you a night person... or a morning person?

If you're a mom, and you're anything like me, you may not remember the answer to that question. It's all a blur, really.

The single girl in me has a carton of yogurt in the fridge and a huge chrome wind-up alarm clock that makes sure I don't miss the sunrise.

I jump out of bed after a luxurious stretch. The covers are nowhere to be found because I kicked them aside in my joy at seeing the morning. I have a little notebook by the side of the bed where I wrote down strange things in the night. I train myself to do so without fully awakening.

The coffeepot is programmable. The morning is fantastic. Don't call me after 10 p.m. unless you're bleeding, but anytime after 5 a.m. is fine. Okey-dokey. Wonderful. Oh, you say you're a late riser? You are MISSING OUT.

***

Fast forward a few years and four babies.

The mommy in me doesn't own an alarm clock (and my fridge is full of string cheese and applesauce). I am so grateful for any sleep, at any time, that I refuse to purchase anything that might limit said sleep. When I really, truly need to wake up (and only if there's some outside chance that the children might sleep past dawn), I ask my husband to set the alarm on my cell phone. Oh, yeah, the single girl in me doesn't have a cell phone either.

I can't really say that the mommy in me is a night owl, but I do appreciate the wee hours more than I did pre-parenthood.

It's just so quiet in the house after the kids are in bed. That certain kind of quiet makes me want to put on a pot of coffee and write all night.

Except the morning will come around. And the phone will ring, and the children will expect, you know, interaction. Nourishment. Clean clothes. At least two out of three of those require me to be semi-conscious.

So, are you a night owl or an early bird? Have you always been that way?

3 comments:

Katie said...

I am oddly, both. I can, and love, to stay up late. I can, and do, rise early without troubles or whining.

I am an odd ball. I don't get much sleep either way you cut it :)

How funny my word verification is:
sofest. LOL!

Alexis said...

I'm so TOTALLY a night person. I've always been that way though, but since I've had kids I'm even worse. Yes, I'm terribly sleep deprived, but I get my best cleaning, reading, writing, organizing done well after the sun goes down and the children are counting sheep.
I do, however, have a newfound appreciation for sunrises, because I've got to see more of them in the last couple years than in my whole lifetime so far!

HonuGirl said...

LATE NIGHTS rule!! But if you invite me out for a 5:30am workout or latte and chat -- I'm excited as all get out to greet the morning (now I may have to set 3 alarms to wake on time - but the company is worth it!)

Guess that puts me in the weirdness category???? hmmm...