Parenting cliche

I work early in the morning three day a week. Each morning I have to drag my children (and sometimes my husband) out of bed kicking and sometimes screaming.

The whole process wears me out and wrecks my morning.

I am one of those MORNING PEOPLE you hear about.

I like to get up early and hit the ground running.

I like to vacuum in the morning, I like to race up and down the stairs picking up toys. I like to drink my coffee on the go.

I like it.

I have always been this way.

I bought myself an alarm clock when I was seven, because my mother was not a morning person, and we were always late for everything.

I hate rushing.

I hate being late.

My husband is not a morning person. He is cranky and grouchy and unpleasant. He needs hours to normalize, to drink coffee, to eat, to sit alone and resent the sun rising.

My son is just like him. A snarling beast each day. My daughter is like me. She bounds out of bed and greets the day with a breath of fire.

LOVELY.

Except!

Now that I am a parent and married to a night owl, I sometimes stay up too late. I sometimes have little people sticking their tiny feet in my face ALL NIGHT LONG, I sometimes have to get these people up to pee-pee at 4:00am, and I am now

TIRED,

ALL THE TIME.

YUP!

ALL THE TIME

Now, it never fails, that on Saturday, the day I could perhaps sleep until 8:00am. My Bootiful Princess, wakes me up at 5:30. I mean it is like clockwork, each weekend the same thing.

So she and I huddle in her room and play, until my cranky husband wakes up at 8:00, then I go back to bed and cat nap until 9:00.

My mother, who is not what anyone would call supportive or comapassionate, kept my daughter for four days this summer.

When they returned she said

"OH- MY- GAWD! Now I know why you are so tired! HOLY COW!"

"HA! SEE! " she usually attributes my tiredness for a general lack of character & verve.