Rise and Shine

Do you remember the little ditty, "It's nice to get up in the morning!  But it's nicer to stay in bed"?

I wholeheartedly agree...with the second part.

I am not a morning person.  Any family member or former roommate or friend who has ever had the pleasure of being around me in the morning will attest to this fact.

I've come a long way in this department.  When I was a teenager and a young adult I was downright mean in the morning, like a rabid dog.  You didn't want to get too close or I was liable to bite off your hand.  I have learned to cope since having children and I can fake it (sort of) most mornings and occasionally paste a smile on my face.  I have to.  I'm the mom.

Part of my maternal duties involves morning.  The advent of cel phones has made the wake-up routine more annoying than ever.  Everyone in the house has set alarms on their phones to go off at varying times, sometimes two or three times.  Cel phones, by their very nature, are not attached to anything, and get left in various rooms, pockets and purses throughout the house.

I am the only member of my family that does not sleep like I'm in a coma.  So, I hear every alarm that is set, from the first through the last and have to go on a scavenger hunt through the house to track them down.  Then I have to awaken the sleeping soul for whom it was intended.

Mornings suck.  It's scriptural.

"If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning,
       it will be taken as a curse."
Proverbs 27:14

I'm not an afternoon person.

Is is just me that feels that slump every afternoon?  I'm working away and I can hear it from the other end of the house.  It's my bed calling, beckoning me to come, lie down and take a wee nap.

Every day it's the same thing.  I have to resist and continue to plod through because most days this slump hits just as I'm expecting the kids to come barreling through the door.  I try not to caffeine my way through the afternoon because, at my age, it affects my ability to sleep at night.  Oh, the dilemma!

Good moms have organized afternoons.  Snacks, homework, what to make for dinner (arrrgh, I hate that one!), homework, housework.  Some days it's all I can do to put one foot in front of the other and make grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.  I feel like I'm shortchanging my family but I can't find any more to give.  Besides, they like cheese.

Afternoons are hard.

I'm not a night person.

I used to be.  I used to love nighttime.  That was when I really started to get going.  Something happened over the past few years.  I got older and nighttime got earlier, or later.  Anyway, it's just not the fun it used to be.  My energy level has disappeared and the sofa looks more and more enticing.

My oldest heads out for the evening at 9 or 10 and I'm not jealous, I'm just thinking, isn't it bedtime?  After my youngest two kids are tucked in for the night I think about settling in to watch a movie or catch up on some work on the computer but all I can really do is drag my butt to bed.  Everything else, even reading a book, seems like too much work.

So, mornings are out, afternoons are shot and nights are kaput.  That leaves me with approximately two really solid hours of time in my day when I am at maximum productivity level.  It appears as though I've shot most of that writing this post today. 

It's definitely time to take a nap.