The Butt Crack of Dawn Says Hello

Every morning at 4:30 a.m. the alarm goes off.  I hit snooze once, then go to make coffee (for the hubband!).  Hubby gets in the shower.  Around 5:25 a.m. he is off to work and I am back in the bed, one eye open, arguing with myself.

If I get up now I’ll be able to go to bed at the right time tonight.

The kids won’t be up for two hours.  Maybe three.

If I get up now I can get my housework done really early.

I don’t really care about the effing house at 5 in the morning. Not even if the MIL is coming to inspect it at 5:01 a.m.

If I get up now I can exercise without two kids hanging from my ankles.

It would be easier to just learn to love my cellulite.

I should get up.

I am not getting up.  My eyeballs hurt.

(Soft snore.)

Yes, I do realize that I am my own worst enemy.  Even the kids, on the days I do get up, are all surprised.  “You’re up, mom? What? Are we doing something special today?”  When I do manage to stay up, I’m so tired that I don’t get my brain working until about 10:50 a.m., which is so similar to when I don’t get up that it all seems completely pointless.

In my mind’s eye, I am up at 4:30, make the coffee, jump excitedly into my exercising outfit, and start pounding away the miles or pumping that iron.  I’m also slim, toned, no longer have to use Proactiv, and my hair is always, always adorable.

It just isn’t happening for me.

Problem #1: Staying up too late

We stay up because we want to do something besides sleep & work.  We stay up because we miss each other.  We stay up because we want to doze in front of the TV, or have a conversation that isn’t interrupted 16 times by a child or the phone.  Or we stay up because his parents are over and we’re visiting.  I stay up because he’s at a drilling rig and I don’t have to get up with him at 4:30 a.m. (hardy har har!).

Problem #2: Inconsistent sleep schedules

By the weekend we are too damned tired from staying up too late to even consider keeping our regular wake-up time.  For-get-it.

Now that I’m not drinking coffee (very often, ahem) and have no very little chemical incentive, I sometimes find it completely impossible to stay awake during the day.  I’ll suddenly realize (usually in a public place) that if do not go to sleep right this minute I’m going to collapse on the floor.  So I rush home holding one eye open manually, turn on a movie for the kids, and collapse into bed.  When they come to wake me up five different times I threaten to kill them until they go away.  Or don’t hear them at all.  Then I can’t go to sleep until 2 a.m. because I slept half the day.  Also usually I awaken from the nap to find the house is wrecked, the dogs are missing, at least one child is bleeding, and they are both completely sure I no longer love them because I was sleeping when I could have been playing with them instead!

It ain’t pretty.

The only solution I see is to find a way to become independently wealthy so that the hubband doesn’t have to commute for a damned hour to get to his damned job by 6 damned 30 a.m.

I figure this is about as likely as my hair always being adorable.

Now I’m off to try to exercise, since I’m writing this after 1 p.m. and I am finally awake enough to consider it and I do care about the circumference of my thighs at this exact moment.  I’m setting it to publish tomorrow, at an hour of the day when my brain will not be cooperating with my limbs whether my eyes are open or not.

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P.S.  Notes on the above post:

-Even if he made his own coffee, he would still wake me up.  Plus, he feels all slighted & unmotivated to support all of us lazy bums if I don’t at least talk to him before he leaves for work.  I figure since all I do all day is avoid housework and blog while he works for a living, I can at least talk to him.

-My ideal wake-up time is 6 a.m.  When I go back to sleep I try to tell myself I’ll get up with the second alarm at 6 a.m., but after 35 minutes of dozing and waking in the middle of a nice dream, I just stagger to the alarm, turn it off, and sleep until I find a kid sitting on my head and using the tattle-tale voice.