Good Morning
I broke my favorite coffee cup some time this year. It really devastated me…it was perfect in every way. This one – although smaller than I like – may finally be the replacement.
There is something I am finally going to have to admit out loud: My kids wake up TOO EARLY. See…before AndyZ was weaned, we would give him his morning bottle before 5am and he would sleep until 7am or later on the weekends. His sister, since they share a room, often slept until the same time. Since he was weaned, however, he is getting UP for the day between 5:30 and 6am. And – since they share a room – so does his sister.
This is killing me.
Not because that is too early for me…it’s not. I’m still awake before they are. BUT – I’m not awake for long. I like to get at least an hour of ME time in before they wake up. Drink my coffee…write a blog post…wash some dishes. Ritual-type things that make me more ready to be a Mom when they get up. However, since I’m still getting up around 5am, I’m not getting that full dose of ME time.
I was hoping it was just an adjustment phase…that they would go back to sleeping late again soon. It’s been about a month now. I think I need to face the dark truth. If I want more than an hour of ME time, I’m going to have to set an alarm. I naturally wake up around 5am…I HATE using an alarm. But not getting my ME time in the mornings? I hate MUCH worse.
I’m hoping after a few weeks of setting an alarm, my natural alarm will reset to an earlier time. Of course..because this is me we’re talking about…we all know what’s going to happen. Sometime during that first week that my body is getting used to the new schedule and I’m waking up naturally before 4:30am instead of 5am? The kids will go back to sleeping until 7am. YOU KNOW I’M RIGHT.
What time do you get up? Do you need that morning time before your kids wake or do you just let them wake you up? And most importantly…How much do you love my coffee cup?
I am exactly the same way! I don’t have kids but I do live with a boyfriend I used to be able to trust would sleep until 8, giving me plenty of time alone in the mornings. But damned if he isn’t in a phase where he’s waking up when I do and starts talking and talking and talking and talking and I am going to go insane. I need coffee, the interwebs, and my mindless puttering back! It really messes me up for the day.
I don’t get up anywhere near as early as you do but I do get up before any one else just to find my sanity for a few precious minutes.
When my boy was a baby and finally drinking from a bottle, I would get up early and make a bottle, sneak in to his room and put it into the corner of his crib for him to wake to. He would wake and find it without too much fuss. Even if he didn’t fall back to sleep just having the drink would give me some extra minutes of sanity. Of course in those days I was working shift work and out the door most mornings before he had even stirred so I didn’t often actually benefit from the tactic, but it still worked.
Good luck, those morning minutes are precious.
On weekday mornings I get up at 5:30 so that I can shower and get coffee in peace, quiet and dark (not many lights on). The kids (2 teens) start getting up at 6ish and we are out the door at 7:15. My “me” time is at night after they’ve gone to bed. Unfortunately, teens stay up late and I am finding it harder and harder to stay awake long enough to outlast them and get my quiet time.
Luckily my daughter gets up at around 7 so I too can get up and get at least 30 – 45 minutes of “me” time. I am off a bit on the weekends when I sleep in until 7. We’ve even tried changing her bedtime to get her to sleep a little later but that does nothing. Thank goodness for the blackout shade in her room or she would probably get up at 5am in the summer.
I get up at last an hour before anyone in my house, which means 5:00 on weekdays. I have to have some time alone to gather my thoughts and get ready for the day.
My kids are up between 6-6:30 every day. This morning we made it until 7:30 and I was in heaven. Usually I have “me time” at night when they are in bed. They both go to bed around 8pm so I have a couple of quiet hours that I treasure beyond words. LOL.
I relate to this! For the first time. All these years of reading you and I would just think “you CRAZY girl, getting up so damned early.” Now? I get it.
I made a HUGE life change back in June and now get up every morning by 6:30 (I try to up by 6:00, am not there yet. YET.) My kids get up around 8 and 9. When they get up earlier, yes, I am irritated. Mornings are my favorite part of my day. That quiet part where it is just ME and my COFFEE and my BLOG and my DOG.
Oh, I totally need my morning quiet time before my daughter wakes up. I drink my cocoa (from my special mug, of course), check my email, and chat with a friend online, since he is in a different time zone and that is the only time our schedules really match up regularly. We just got back from visiting him, though, and my daughter didn’t adjust as well as I’d hoped to the time change, so I’ve only been getting about 15 minutes to myself, which is driving me INSANE.
My kids almost always need me to wake them. I have an 8am rule for them. Up at 8, starting our schoolwork by 9. I get up anywhere from 6-7am (whenever my body naturally wakes me up), to give me a little quiet before the bedlam.
Hey, my husband is flying to Hville today for job interviews this week. We’re moving at the end of the year. Keep an eye out for a BIG 5BR house we could rent while we wait to build something. I am so EXCITED.
LOVE the coffee cup. LOVE me time even more
When my son (now 5 months) was a newborn with no set bedtime, I would take ME time in the mornings, after his 4am feeding and before he got up for the day. Now, I let him and his siter (2 years old) wake me and I take ME time in the evenings, after that kids are in bed, the kitchen cleaned, the living room picked up.
Could be worse — I get up with my son (9 months old) between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m. He does go to bed at 5:30 most days, but I’d rather have time to myself in the morning than at night!
I don’t do morning me time, I usually get it at night but it is getting harder to get, maybe I need to switch it up during the week because a cup of coffee by myself sounds really awesome!!!
I don’t have kids but I’ve definitely noticed as I’ve gotten older that I wake up earlier and earlier on the weekend. I can’t imagine having kids up that early! I definitely need “me time” too when I wake up. When I was a kid though, my parents taught me immediately how to take care of myself in case I woke up before them so I didn’t get them up earlier than necessary.
I love the coffee cup! I’m hoping to see Wicked when it comes to Richmond in March. My daughter has been waking up at 4:15am. It is hell. I am NOT a morning person and she had been getting up around 7:30. I’m hoping it is a growth spurt. Tonight, I put warmer PJ’s on her and gave her a HUGE bedtime snack with the hope she’ll sleep much later. She is a teeny bit older than AndyZ at 17 months.
That’s a wicked awesome mug
I am seriously convinced that my body clock will NEVER be okay with getting up before 8 am. I will do it and I’ve done it for years at a time for school/work, but it always sucks and I never really get used to it.
My son is only 3, goes to bed between 8 and 9 and usually wakes up between 8 and 9 am. Works out pretty well, but I need at least an hour before I’m ready to go and do stuff.
You Might not want to read this.
I was always a night person; if I went to bed before 4 am that was cool, and 5 am was OK too. Then *they* (the small ones) came. I had to be in bed by midnight because *they* were up by 5 or 6 or 7 AM, and if I wasn’t up by 8 AM, bad things happened … then my job got bigger and more important, and I had to put more hours in, and I had a choice. I could stay at work later (like most of Us did), or get up earlier.
And I was Told that staying later wasn’t an option because it would be Bad for the Family. And I heard, and I believed.
So I tried to get up earlier, and it was a failure, and a f*lup, and a not happening. And I said “This ain’t working.” And He said “How about getting up Even Earlier, like 4 Am” and I said WTF you are one sadistic dude iffen I can’t get up at 6 how is it going to work Earlier, but I tried it, and it worked.
And so I did.
And the moral of the story is that if you need to get Up, you get Up, and it’s all about timing and cycles. And even Night People can get Up in the Morning if it is Needful. and to this day, 18 years later, I can get up Early, or I can sleep Late, but not somewhere In The Middle.
SO love the coffee cup. Last time I saw Wicked I bought the theater card (the poster) and went back a few nights later at curtain time. I waited at the stage door and asked the cast members to sign it. It’s one of my favorite mementos of the show–I’ve also done that with Joseph, Scarlet Pimpernel and Jekyll and Hyde. You wouldn’t believe the interesting people you meet while waiting at the stage door!
I don’t have kids, but I usually am out of bed (on days I have to go to work) by 7:30. That’s the plan, anyway.
I love your cup! I have the same one, and the only thing I don’t love about it is that it IS too small. I can’t fit more than a couple of sips in there, really.
Oh Zoot,
This is not making me happy for when my daughter (8 months) is weaned. She currently wakes up between 5 and 6, nurses, and then goes back to sleep until 7:30 or 8. Lately I have been wondering what will happen when she is weaned, and you have confirmed my worst fears! Hello waking up for the day between 5 and 6! I think I am going to have to bite the bullet and try to get up even earlier to get some alone time.
I have alarms set for 6, 6:15, and 6:30 AM. I get up between 6:30 and 6:45 and am out the door by 7:15. But then again I don’t have kids so it is all me time.
I have always let my kids wake me up because that was at 5 or 5:30 am and I could not possibly get up any later. My “me” time is in the night after kids go to bed and hubby goes to work (he works the night shift). But…now my kids do not get up so early. They don’t get up until 7 so I think I am going to try and get up around 6 so I can exercise and have morning coffee in peace. At 6 they will still be asleep and hubby won’t be home yet so totally alone! That sounds awesome. I am going to try and become a morning person. I never could with my kids but if I could have peace and quiet during that time it might work!!