Once I was a morning person. It was when I was a tween and a swimmer. I got up at 4:30 to get to 5am practices, bed to suit to water with ease. I remember how joyful I felt about mornings being bright and crisp. I was alive and I knew it.
I'm not sure when being a "morning person" slipped away from me. I know I held onto it through high school. I was always eager to rise and meet the day. I suspect it was when I had children. My body was tired all the time, my thoughts in shambles. Doing anything was hard, especially with a "colicky" first child who almost never stopped screaming unless he was attached to my breast or asleep.
Parenting is high stress. When other parents tell me about their sweet-tempered children, I suspect them of lying. Or having only one who is spoiled. Or, even stranger, being a morning person themselves.
Morning people can't be trusted. I know this for certain despite that I was quite trustworthy in my happy-to-rise days. I know this because two of my three children wake up fully charged for 5am swim practice daily BUT THEY ARE NOT SWIMMERS. No, they are simply up. And when a parent is not up with them, they destroy the kitchen in a hunt for food, draw on walls and tables and their own bodies and find scissors so they can create confetti.
Dragging myself out of sleep is its own chore. I experience significant joint pain if I wake up mid-cycle. Often, I get downstairs with the kids and pass out on a couch. This is why my spouse lets me sleep in almost every day. This, the fact that naps make me extremely nauseous and, well, he loves me. I am simply noting this here because I am exhausted. I'm panning to go to bed very shortly because is out with our eldest late tonight. The little man is going to his first metal concert. And Nathan will need to sleep in. I intend to let him.
What is something amazing your love does for you?
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