Mornings

When you have kids mornings take on quite a different feel. Essentially the kids take the choice of what to do with your morning...scratch that....they kids decide what to do with their morning. I believe this to be the truth in most households with children. I have heard lovely stories of mothers who will rise before their families and start coffee, read the paper, etc.

I've done this once. While I did like it, and can see the appeal, the truth is that I really like to lay in bed as long as I possibly can. They are the first to rise get to start the households day in motion. Jack is an early riser, always has been. There have been mornings where we have been at the grocery store or a 24-hour McDonalds at 5:30am.....seriously. Maddie tends to sleep in a little bit more, and Noah is happy to sleep as long as he has his milk supply available (that would be me).

But it didn't take very long to see that trying to stay in bed to actually rest vs. shout threats from our room, was a losing battle. We have been able to put some structure into the mornings at our house to get a little more shut-eye. Room darkening shades, snacks in bed for the kids, other various bribes. Most recently we have begun setting a timer outside of Jack and Maddies room. This seems to work. Whatever time the big kids wake up they understand that they are to stay in bed until the timer goes off at 7am. This has seemed to work well, most of the time.

They will often come into our room holding the alarm (John's cell phone) telling us it is time to get up. Now, despite the fact that I have been up since 530 with Noah, who has settled into a pattern of nursing and then singing to me....I am able to manage to get a little more rest, or at least move Noah out of the way so I can get some cuddle time with John. What...yes, cuddling with my husband, its like a date.

Some mornings each one trickles into our room one by one. Noah has been with us all night, but Jack sometimes comes in (at his 530 preferred wake time) and cuddles with me and falls back asleep. Maddie, who can exit her crib with stealth silence, will come in generally with the alarm or to announce "Im all done with night night". So then we've got all 5 of us in one bed. Picture that, all five of us in a full size bed. Together. Jack generally is all over Noah. Maddie likes to pretend to hide from....she doesn't get that we are all right there, but we play along anyway. I think poor Noah goes from having mom and dad all to himself to being mangled by a big brother and sister. Poor Noah, he takes all of our chaos so well. I think he just understands he has no other choice. I think he is laughing inside, and now sometimes outside as well.

While this way to start the day only lasts a minute or two until someone needs breakfast, a new diaper, or has been kicked poked or smothered by another. Its a really cool time of day that I didn't appreciate until I stopped fighting it.

Next Post: All the Small things.