Mornings suck

I hate mornings. No, no, I mean, I really hate mornings. If they could invent an anti-depressant medication that was only to be taken in the morning and would wear off after two hours, I'd be good. A nanny that just did mornings would work too. It doesn't matter if I wake up at 5:00 or at 9:00. For the first hour of the day, I am right on the line between suicidal and psychotic. (I know what you're thinking: My husband is a lucky, lucky man.)

This morning situation I've got going is not new. I've always been this bad. When I was in kindergarten, my parents tried everything to get me out of bed: gentle shakings, sweet kisses, turning on lights, throwing off covers, threats that the bus would leave me behind...but in the end the only thing that ever worked was making me pissier than I already was. So, my father would tease me about Eugenio. Eugenio was my classmate who ate his own poop and licked the bottom of his shoe during Circle Time. True story. Even at 5 years old, I was so borderline violent in the mornings, that only avoidance of this kind of parental harassment would get me out of bed.

One of the only differences between my morning behaviors then and now are that I married a man who just won't allow me to abuse him in the mornings. It's like he's talking to our 3 year old: "You can be cranky. But you can't be rude." He holds me to that, so I have no other choice but to hang my 36-year-old head in shame and say a polite "good morning" each day. We've kinda worked out an agreement through the years: if I behave like a human being, he will give me as much space as is possible on that day.

Before I had kids, I handled my a.m. handicap with an ongoing internal monologue: "All you gotta do right now is brush your teeth. That is all that is required of you right now. Just brush your teeth." Then, "All you gotta do right now is eat breakfast. Just eat breakfast." Unfortunately, I am NOT kidding. This is, for real, what was happening in my head in the mornings. I am already so bleary-eyed and disoriented simply from the act of getting out of bed that if I were to start thinking about the actual day ahead--good or bad--I would get even more flustered and overwhelmed. Whether I'm going on vacation or am going to work, there is only one thing I want to do in the mornings, and that is: Get Back In Bed.

Now that I have kids, well...ha. It's way worse. On workday mornings, my alarm goes off at 5:00 and this is still barely enough time for all four of us to get out of the house on time. There is no time for self-pity. And on weekends? Usually not much different...we take turns doing the baby's 5:30ish feeding, and then somewhere between 7:30 and 8:15 we are awakened by Ben's ever shrill, ever energetic, ever ready-to-start-the-day call of "MaaaaaMaaaa" or "DaaaaaDaaaaa." And then...oh, we're ON. "Let's play. Let's play! Let's PLAY!"
He absolutely, most definitely, does not take after his Mama.