(What is better than a sleeping child? Shhhhhh, don’t wake her. )
One of the greater ironies of my marriage is that my husband is a morning person – like an early morning person. Sleeping in for Ninja is 8 am. For me, sleeping in is somewhere around lunch time. After becoming a parent, I did not magically become a morning person as much as I had hoped I would. I envisioned 5:30 am workouts and the quiet time to myself before the kids got up and all that jazz. Reality is that my kid comes to wake me up and getting up at 5:30 am seems like a crime fit for a time out.
Today, my kid woke me up at 5:40 am because she peed in her bed. I mostly blame this one on myself, though. I did not insist enough that she go pee before bed, despite the truckloads of water I saw her drink with my own eyes (and that I allowed). I was too busy thinking about all the Candy Crush I could play after she went to bed. In addition, I told my friends that Ninjette was nighttime potty trained – all on her own. I had nothing to do with it, but I still bragged about it like I could now write a book on the finer points of potty training, including the much more difficult nighttime training. If I had just kept my mouth shut as we were browsing through Pottery Barn, but no, all the beautiful and impractical housewares that I had once registered for my wedding kept me jabbering on. Somehow, that unclaimed accomplishment made me feel better about browsing in a store where I so longingly wished I could decorate my house with, but knowing that in reality, it would get broken, peed on, and who knows what else. I immediately regretted the statement after it came out of my mouth and then I made a mental note that maybe 16 years of age for Ninjette would be an okay time to come back to this store.
Anyway, whenever something has to happen in the wee hours before the sun rises or in the middle of the night, my child is programmed to call for me. I cannot seem to reprogram her to call for her father. When my sleep is interrupted, it is as if I didn’t sleep at all that night. I am cranky pants and grumpy. It’s really not pretty.
Sleep is wonderful, but I really think I just use it to get to the afternoon/evening time. It’s my favorite part of the day because there is hustle and bustle. There is good tv (sometimes) and there is the whole going out to movies or dinner; the meeting of friends; the beauty of the end of the day and the sunset. I think Ninja would probably opt fo the start of the day and the sunrise with the quietness of it all. Ninjette is still deciding, I think. She is not entirely a morning person and she needs a lot more sleep than the average kid, but she still is enamored by the morning and waking up the sun as much as she sees the excitement of the night. I don’t know when that will all wear off, but I am hoping that the influence of her father will make her more of a morning person.
It’s nearly 6:30 am now and I feel like crawling back to bed for a snooze. Tomorrow is another day and another chance to be a morning person, right?