Hit the Snooze!

If you know anything about me then you know that I am a huge fan of sleep. I’ve never voluntarily gotten up before 7 am in my life….on purpose. Of course through the years and having 3 children, I’ve had to get up before 7 am, but like I said not voluntarily.

I cherish sleep. I treasure sleep.

This all stemmed from being an individual who constantly struggled with being sick ALL the time. Rest is the best medicine, at least it is for me.  And yes, I have a very understanding and amazing husband who more times than I can count has bitten the bullet and let me have extra rest now and then when the children come calling at the wee hours of the morn’.   Now before you start throwing rocks at me or cursing me, keep reading.

That being said, he, my husband, convinced me that I should start getting up at 5am with him to workout. Bawk, laugh, haha are you talking to me? Do you know who you married! Silly man.

To me, 5 am is still night time; especially during the winter months when it’s still super dark outside. I thought, Ok, I’ll give it a try. What!! I didn’t see that coming!

So for the past few days I have been getting up earlier than I thought humanly possible. Much to my chagrin, I actually have enjoyed myself. (Don’t tell him. Shhh!)

It’s been great to get my exercise out of the way for the day, spend some quality time in God’s Word, spend some uninterrupted time with the hubby (even if it is just to laugh at each other at how out of shape we are and to see who is sucking more wind) and to enjoy a little peace and quiet before the madness of the day begins.

Literally, chaos hits one by one as each child awakens. They appear to be nothing short of little angels as they sleep, upon rising to face a new day and it’s many challenges with their vocal chords in full swing at the top of the scale, making their demands known or at least heard. As if waking up at 5am wasn’t a rude enough wakening in and of itself, it surely is now.

Of course, the days that you are in a hurry to rush out the door (is there any other kind of day for a mother?) the slower they move. It doesn’t matter how much you prepare them the night before or talk to them the morning of, it’s as if they have decided to be in a race with a snail and the snail is winning by a mile! Finally, only after the words, “get in the car, let’s go” have become a sing song chant (really, lets be real it’s more of a death threat than a sing song chant especially for us non morning people) that you will find yourself repeating in your sleep later that night, and by nothing short of a miracle is finally accomplished.

Without avail, rest assured there is at least one child who, if they remembered to put on shoes in the first place, are mismatched, one that has pieces of breakfast in her hair, and another who tells you as you pull out of the driveway that they are still wearing yesterday’s underwear. But it should be ok because Superman is on them and he can save the day. Well Superman, I’ve got news for you.

When you reach your destination, you take a deep breath before getting out of the car hoping to give yourself one last shot at feeling composed. That all goes out the window when a foul poop odor emanates from within the vehicle. You check yourself quickly, (not your pants silly, you’re clothing, unless you really ARE having one of those mornings then you just might have to check your pants too),  just to be sure baby’s morning poop didn’t somehow jump off their rear-end and onto your white blouse. You laugh, but it’s happened. You know what I’m talking about. When the culprit has been discovered and the coast is clear, you check the clock and think to yourself, great we’re only 10 minutes late, that’s pretty good.

Finally, when you return home after the morning hustle and bustle and you’ve had a split second to collect yourself you mentally start calculating how many hours until nap time when maybe, just maybe you’ll get a chance to sit down. This causes you to look at the clock and you notice it’s only 9am.

Before the tears start rolling down your cheeks from sheer exhaustion you survey the room where your littles are playing nicely together for a moment in time. You hear their sweet little giggles and sing song voices float through the house as they pretend to be conquering the world with their rescuebots and ponies.

Then you look down into those huge beautiful blue eyes of the babe tapping at your leg and see the contagious smile on her face and you can’t help but feel blessed beyond measure. And in that moment, I remember those few quiet minutes that came around 5am and I think to myself, sleep, who needs sleep when you can have all of this.

ME! My brain screams. I do! I need sleep! Oh but look back at that sweet face and big eyes, with all the love they know just for you and let it melt your heart and calm your screaming brain. Drink it up and take the days, one at a time, until you reach that much-anticipated day, that is not a dream, where you can hit the snooze and hear the wondrous sound of silence.