Good morning and all that

Kids are so accommodating.

I love being up early in the morning. I don't necessarily like the act of getting up early, but once I'm up, the early morning hours are just so peaceful and promising and perfect somehow. The silence and darkness and anticipation of the coming day. My best friend from high school, who long ago lived out in the country and got up very, very early to come into town for work, once said being up that early felt like being in on a secret, a secret the sleeping masses knew nothing about. I always loved that analogy, as I also used to get up very early for work, and it absolutely felt like being in on something special--especially that certain time of year when Venus shown gorgeously bright near the horizon as I headed east for the last little leg of my commute.

But I remember always wondering why the hell I never got up that early just for myself, to have an entire day propelled by that invigorating early morning energy to do whatever it is I wanted. I clearly never made it a priority, a decision made even more bizarre by the fact that I essentially turn into a pumpkin by 10:30pm. I am in no way a night owl. I thrive in the early hours of the day. But we depressive types tend toward oversleeping, or, at least, I do, so when I have an opportunity, I sleep, man. Sleep is my happy place. It has been since I was a young girl. Whenever I got upset over something, I would just go to bed, cry (or fume) myself to sleep, wake up a while later, and all would be rightish with the world. My family doesn't call me "Bear" for nothing. (Actually, the etymology of the nickname has nothing to do with my hibernating habits, it's just a bonus aspect.)

A week or two ago, I had gone to bed quite early the night before and woke up around 4:30am feeling really well-rested and fresh, so I decided to just get up. I put on my slippers and a sweater against the early morning chill (although it's summertime and it gets quite warm in our neck of the woods, it's a dry heat and we have enough coastal influence that it still gets fairly cool at night--and we are total fresh-air freaks and leave the house open all night to take advantage of that coolness for the coming heat of the day), made a cup of coffee, and parked my ass at the dining room table to write. I got a couple of hours of writing in before the rest of the house stirred and it was GLORIOUS. And I surprisingly felt less tired than usual for the remainder of the day. Once the wee folk started "sleeping through the night" (wink, wink) after we weaned last spring, I have certainly made up for my previous years-long sleep deficit, especially while we were all still napping together in the afternoons. But I have been just exhausted the past few weeks, akin to how exhausted I was when they were tiny. I suspect ye ol' depression has something to do with it. It's annoying like that.

But ANYWAY. Since I felt so fabulous after that early morning start, I decided I would do it again soon and perhaps even make it a regular thing. Even though I tend towards more sleep, I actually think I do better in general on less sleep than my norm, so getting up at 4:30 every day isn't an entirely outlandish idea for me. I've even set out clothes the night before in anticipation of starting my morning off with a walk before I settled in at the computer (another goal of mine), yet I haven't managed to actually make it happen again. But last night I decided this morning would be the morning. I was going to get up in the early morning darkness and do my thing, whatever I decided that thing should be upon waking. I had a pretty awesome day to myself yesterday while the wee folk were at preschool followed by Nana Banana's, but since they've given up napping entirely, the last hour or so preceding bedtime, as well as bedtime itself, is usually just a fucking disastrous nightmare, and I totally lost my zen soon after arriving at my mom's to pick them up yesterday evening. I was anxious to reclaim that bit of zen and felt finally making it a priority to start my day early again today would help.

And that's where my accommodating children come in, the toadish one, to be more specific. He clearly knew in his heart of hearts that I wanted, nay needed, to be up early this morning, so he, in his sweet, thoughtful, generous toad way, woke up at 4am, and no amount of encouragement would get him back to sleep.

So, alas. I achieved my goal of getting up early today. Not quite in the way I might have hoped, of course, but mamas can't be...

Fuck. It's too damn early to finish that stolen proverb.

Who gets up at 4am anyway?