The Joys of Early Morning Parenting

Some folks think that early morning wake ups go away once your child reaching the age of two. I am here to tell you that isn't true by any stretch. I don't know if it is the full moon or the much awaited change in weather, but the Boy climbed into our bed at 4:45 AM this morning claiming it was his "Wake Up Time." Crazy kid...needless to say the Husband and I were none too pleased. Our dialogue with the Boy hovered between "It's not time to get up yet." and "If you don't stop talking, you will have to go back to your bed."

So, at about 5:15 AM, the Boy sits up and says, "Momma, I'm wet." Yes, he had peed a bit in his pants. Not in the bed thankfully. So up goes the Boy and The Husband. Silence for me. The Husband shares with me when I awake at 6 AM that the Boy is downstairs watching Curious George. I make my way downstairs and there he is in new pjs, watching George. He doesn't seem a bit sleepy. We get through breakfast, getting dressed and packing lunches with whiny Boy and head out the door at 7:20 AM to get to work and school. The Boy is chatting about rain and lightening. It is raining for the first time in weeks and he was very excited. The chatting starts to slow down. The last thing the Boy says is, "I want to get to school to see if it's raining there."

The next thing I know, it has been silent in the car for a few minutes. I look in the mirror and low and behold the Boy is asleep. I am shocked. Now I understand that he got up before the crack of dawn this morning, but he is like his father, he only goes to sleep at assigned times. Once he is up in the morning, he does not fall asleep until his assigned nap time. He has not ever, ever, ever fallen asleep in the early morning. He is NOT that child.

About 5 minutes after I realize the Boy is asleep and share it with my husband via cell, I pull into the preschool parking lot. The Boy is still zonked in the back seat. I get out in the rain, open his door and his eyes pop open. Wide eyed and fully awake, he smiles and says, "I told you there would be rain at school."

It was as if he had not stopped talking at all. He wasn't really sleeping, he was talking to himself in his mind the entire time his eyes were closed and his body was twitching. To him, there was no lapse in time. I asked him how his nap was and he said, "I'm not taking a nap now." It is then that I realize sometimes the Boy has my traits. I would "sleep" through early morning classes in college, but walk out of the class with a full page of notes as if I had be bright-eyed and bushy tailed while Dr. Steffen talked about cellular and molecular biology. It is hard to be awake and listen to anything at 8 AM, but hey, I did well in the class because I wasn't really sleeping.