morning rules

For a morning person, the phrase "morning rules" could be an opinion, or even an enthusiastic chant (Morning rules!)

For me, the phrase is very literal. I have morning "rules" that if implemented, would help morning be a more palatable experience for me--and in effect, those around me.

Unfortunately, my morning rules can rain on the morning parades of my jubilant morning-person husband, and our two morning-loving sons. (My daughter actually got my genes on this one, and like me, has to climb out of a deep, drowsy state to begrudgingly greet the morning.)

Here's an example of a new morning rule, freshly instituted this morning. When I rolled over to snug up to Brian, in hopes that it was still the middle of the night, he informed me that it was 7am. (Which was actually quite a tolerable time--before daylight savings forced it to come an hour earlier.) Usually by this time, Cairo has already been awake for 30 minutes or more, but this morning he was still sleeping, and I saw a window of opportunity. Brian could get up and get Staten ready while I snuck in twenty minutes more worth of z's. But I fought the instinct and instead got up to get breakfast started and Staten's lunch packed while the boys got ready. When Brian walked in the kitchen to find me "up and at 'em" he started to speak in his upbeat announcer voice to comment on the situation. I stopped him abruptly and proclaimed a new morning rule. "No disc jockey voice before 10 a.m." I went on about how a nice medium tone would better fit my morning mood.

So Brian, being the good sport that he is, called me just after 10 a.m. from work to use his disc jockey voice now that the restricted time frame had passed. (I knew that call would come, by the way.)

He makes a good point that the cloud over my morning shouldn't have to cloud everyone's morning--and he illustrates this well with his standard morning jig, that he and Staten like to taunt us with in the mornings. On a good morning, the girls prove our good humor by dancing along, but on most mornings we are not up for the jig. I haven't made a rule about it yet, but it is inching its way up the list.

So there's the nitty gritty truth. I am a party pooper for the first hour or two of the day. But I do pick up from there, and by 10 p.m., I'm really raring to go. (Or at least I was, before motherhood zapped so much of my energy...)

Anyway, this post is dedicated to morning people everywhere for putting up with morning rules, and non-morning people too, for putting up with morning jigs. And to Brian, for waiting 'til 10 a.m.