What happens when your brain says you’re up and the clock says otherwise?
I woke up at four this morning without the assistance of my two young girls who normally are up by five every morning. I thought for a moment that I may be able to roll over and fall back asleep, but that effort was all for nothing as my brain was running. I have always wanted to be a morning person who gets everything done before the sun rises, but my need for sleep seems to trump having plenty of quality time before the younger humans in the house wake up. I had absolutely no idea what to do and figured that falling back to sleep would only be short lived.
After a few minutes of attempting to decide what the next action was, I got out of bed to make a matcha latte and start my day early. I saw the cat looking at me very sheepishly in the corner of the kitchen and knew that sipping on a homemade latte would not be the only thing on my list prior to the girls coming out of the room. Much to my surprise the living room that had been picked up the night before was covered with toys from a small bin that must have been left open. Without a doubt the toys were not a match to nighttime cat zoomies. Once the toys were picked up and my matcha was made, I sat in front of my laptop and stared at the screen so intensely that I did not realize that I was no longer left on my own.
My nearly seven year old with her hair in disarray sat next to me as if she was studying the wall and did not respond when I said hello to her. My oldest had grown out of sleep walking years ago, but her younger sisters still do. I was clearly in the presence of a child who was not awake, but had walked through two rooms to sit down next to her mommy. I began to debate the options of what to do when I attempted to direct her back to bed. Good thing I am a betting person because then she was now wide awake.
The early morning that I had been surprised to was reduced to picking up toys from the cat’s midnight rampage and making tea. The derailed mom time had turned into mommy and me time. We began talked over tea and milk prior to put on a favorite television show about animals, both prior to starting the normal morning rush. What could have been extra productive time was replaced by a better bonding time!
