Memory Monday - early to rise or early to bed?

I'm taking my cue from Katie the scrapbook lady for this Memory Monday. The discussion is early morning habits. And she is right - it is nice to have an idea of some of our daily habits down for memory sake.

I would definitely consider myself a night owl, not a morning person. I get it from my mother. Often you can see the light on in her office at 2 am in the morning. I could easily stay up well into the early hours of the morning too - as long as I am working on something. As it is it is usually at least midnight before I get to bed.

This week I am having a little trouble getting out of bed. Typically I like to be up at 6am to keep an eye on Cierra and get her going on time. Mitchell is getting up at about the same time so it has been working well. Except this week. He has been sleeping later. I like to get him up as soon as he stirs because it usually means he is ready for the potty. And there is nothing better than not cleaning a dirty diaper but rather a dirty potty. SO much easier. I can't hear him if I am not in the bedroom or right with the monitor though. Ideally, I like to get him up and go immediately down to the basement and do 3-10 minute exercise stints. I can do some quiet time and reading in those times too. Then I go up and check on Cierra in between each exercise stint. This hasn't worked this week. It did work well 2 weeks ago. Then I got sick in between and now here we are. I need to get back into that groove. It seems this is a bit of a pattern for me though. I tend to have variations of these patterns all year. I'll be honest though, any chance I can get to stay in my warm cozy bed I will take. Even though I know it will be to my detriment later on in the day.

I don't recall what my childhood habits were regarding sleep. I do know that for holidays my brother was always the first up and was quick to get my sister and I up to join him. I know that we enjoyed Saturday morning cartoons but I don't recall if it was at the crack of dawn or later!

During highschool I seem to recall getting up just to get to class. I don't think I was up early to do anything extra like exercise or early morning job.

When I was in university and home in between, I worked at a number of group homes for the 6-10am shift. I think that is the earliest I have ever had to get up on a regular basis. When I lived downtown and Drew was working out-of-town shift work I did go to the YMCA regularly before work. That would have been for about 6:30am regularly. I loved getting my exercise done and out of the way. And once I was up I was up. Before we had Mitchell I did get out the odd time to do early morning runs. I had to be careful to time it around Cierra's bathroom routine though and it didn't always work.

These days Drew and I seem to have a pretty good rhythm going for weekends. During the week he sleeps until after 7am unless he is going running. On the weekend, if he doesn't have a men's breakfast, he will usually take Mitchell and get up with him at 6amish and let me go back to sleep. I'll get up the other morning and let him sleep in on that day. The only thing that doesn't seem too fair, is that the kids seem to leave Drew alone on the days he "is up" and he still seems to get to doze anyway. Hmmm - what is wrong with this picture?

I find it easiest to get into my work/ hobby groove after the kids have gone to bed. I now need to work around Mitchell's feeding schedule but by far I get the most work done during his morning nap time and then immediately after he had gone to bed. I'd love to stay in bed late in the mornings but it just isn't possible right now. This means I have to get to bed at a decent time and for me that is before midnight. I am blessed however to be able to "function" with less then 6 hours of sleep each night (Mitchell is still feeding 1-2 times each night after I get into bed).

For now it is what it is and I know that it is only for a season. It won't be long before Mitchell will be up taking care of himself in the mornings too. For now I will take it as it is and enjoy it. Even if it means I don't get the regular exercise I should but instead get to enjoy my awesome bed. I'm willing to make the sacrifce. Trust me, it's hard but someone has to do it.