Sunday, March 29, 2009

Trying to sleep until 6am

Have I mentioned lately how early my boys wake up? For a short while in January both boys were sleeping until 6am, and I realized that I function much better if I wake up at 6, instead or at 4:30 or 5. So when Aaron started waking at 4:30 again, I decided it was time to put my foot down. I got an alarm, and for the last week I've been setting it for 6am and generally refusing to do anything except the essentials before 6am. Here's a sample morning, these days:

4:30 am -- Aaron wakes up and climbs off of his mattress and into our bed. He asks to nurse, and I pass him his cup of water and tell him "not until the beep". He wails JUST enough to wake Andrew up.

4:40 am -- Andrew: Mom? MOM! Dad? DAD! I need to go pee!
Andrew gets out of his bed in his room, goes pee, and comes into our room with his bowl of graham crackers and his water. He shoved everyone out of the way and climbs into the middle of the bed.
Andrew: I need a pillow! I don't have any covers! Dad, move over, there's no ROOM!
Me: stop complaining or go back to your own room.
Both boys settle down and I start to fall back to sleep.

5:00 am -- Aaron(climbing on top of me): Nums. Nums now.
Me: no nursing until the beep.
Aaron: beep not coming, mom.
Me: lets go potty.
I take Aaron to the potty. Andrew comes in.
Andrew: I need to use the toilet. Read me a book.
Me: i'm not reading you a book until after the beep.
We finish the potty ordeal. As I go to leave,
Andrew: Aaron, don't come with me. I want to play in my room alone.
Me: Andrew, Aaron will go to your room and play with something else. You can have time to play alone later.

5:15 (yes, that all took 15 min). Boy are playing quietly. I start to doze.

5:30: (a voice from afar): Mommy! Come down! Come down, mommy!
Me: aaron, I'm not coming to the basement. Mommy is sleeping. Come upstairs.
Andrew enters: Mom, where's Aaron? I want to play with him.
Me: he's down stairs. go check if the light is on.

5:35: Andrew: Aaron won't come up. Make him come upstairs, mom.
Aaron: (from downstairs) Mommy! Come down! Come down mommy!
me: is the light on?
Andrew: Yep.
me: just leave him be.

5:45: (from downstairs) Mommy! Come down! Come down, mommy!
Andrew (having left, enters again with lego creation): Mom, look. Its my Mini Mighty Motor Blaster Car. It has a gun and it shoots the bad guys. Pshew! Pshew!
Aaron (coming up the stairs) Mommy! come see me!
Andrew: Pshew! Pshew! (Andrew flies the Motor Blaster back to his room to make a Helicopter to go with it)

5:55 Aaron: books, mommy. Read books.
me: I'm not reading books until the beep. I will turn the light on.
Aaron: get books! get books! turn light off! turn it off! nums!
me: not until the beep.
Aaron: Beep not coming mom. Nums now.
Andrew (entering with two lego creations): Now, mom, there's a helicopter bad guy that the Mini Mighty Motor Blaster is shooting. He just blew up the helicopter.
me: oh no
Andrew: no, its the BAD GUY, mom.
me: hooray
Aaron: Beep not coming mom.

6am: BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Aaron: Hooray, nums!
Andrew: Is it tv time now?
We straggle out to the living room. I wonder . . . is this really better than just getting up? I convince myself that in time they will let me sleep until 6am. Really.

1 comment:

Kristen said...

I sympathize with you Jill, I really do...I'm playing it the other way around these days, with Jeremy refusing to go to bed at 7:30 (last night it was past 11)