Rice crispie square optional.
It is funny how certain life phases can completely change big parts of your personality. I used to be rather high strung and a bit uptight. I was also very uncomfortable voicing my feelings. I was most definitely a night owl. Motherhood has changed me in so many ways, mostly good I must say. Learning to let things go and address things that need it are important. However, losing the night owl component is more amusing to me.
I was a proud night owl. I would stay up doing homework and reorganizing my room as a teen. In my 20’s it was all about late night TV and rearranging furniture. In my 30’s I started having children and it became about alone time. You know what I mean. At 2am is when Mom finally gets to pee alone and watch a show that is NOT Phineas & Ferb.
Then, around the time my third child was born, something changed. The older kids started preschool, so I needed to be functional to get everyone ready in the mornings. Getting three kids under four ready and out the door is no joke. (Now that I have four, it is mostly the same.) Then, after years of me harping him about it, my husband started working out. Suddenly we had both his gym schedule AND my gym schedule to work around. Since we don’t have any sitters, we need to switch off caring for the kids. So I moved some of my workouts to morning. In order to be home before my husband leaves for work, I had to be to the gym at 5:15am. Well, you can’t really stay up late and get up at 4:30am. You can try, but it doesn’t work out well.
Along came baby four, and now I am tired enough to fall asleep at 9pm, and am up naturally at 4:45am because…….life.
I am as surprised as anyone to say that now I am a morning person.
I love the quiet right before everyone wakes up yelling at 5:00.
I love the crisp air right before the sun comes up.
I love the peaceful rhythm at the gym at such an early hour. It is a very particular kind of person you see doing deadlifts at 5am.
I love that first sip of coffee when it is still dark out.
I love that short bit of peace before the chaos of our day begins.
Our evenings have become a race to bedtime. For kids and parents alike. Looking back on the old night owl ways, I feel perhaps I loved the nights because my days felt empty. Now my says are so full, the night holds less appeal. *Cue long paragraph where I am supposed to talk about my heart being so full and a bunch of mushy stuff.*
Or maybe I’m just dealing with typical mom exhaustion and this is the real way people transition into a Folgers commercial.
