Confessions of the Morning

We have a problem here at the Brittish household: our kids wake up too dang early.

Yesterday, for example, I got out of bed at 5:30, and there they were! Watching Despicable Me like it's a perfectly normal thing to do at 5:30 a.m. on a school day.

Three hours.

THREE HOURS.

That's how long I had to be a conscious mother before my child left for school. Tell me... what am I supposed to do with my kids for three hours every morning before school?

Now, I realize that there is a pro to all of this - I never have to fight my kids to get them out of bed. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had to actually wake my kids up in the morning (and 4 of those 5 times were because we were leaving for Disneyland at 3:00 in the morning). For that I am grateful.

BUT...

The same thing could be accomplished if they slept until 7:00.

For the love! Why won't they sleep until 7:00????

But back to the "What am I supposed to do with my kids before school" thing.

That time could be used quite productively. The kids could get all of their chores done. Nicky could practice the piano or read and free up some of his afternoon time. We could get our family scripture study done.

But I can't make it happen.

Because I don't want to be a mom at 5:30 in the morning.*

When I wake up to my kids, the chaos is immediate. I'm overwhelmed instantly, and the fact that it's dark outside and my kids are begging for cups of milk and they've already helped themselves to the boxes of candy they got from their grandma the night before and there's no chance of fitting a shower in just makes it all so much worse.

So the dang kids watch TV all morning because that's all I can handle.

Sometimes, they get TWO FULL HOURS of TV before 8:00 in the morning.

Yep. You heard me.

TWO HOURS.

Judge away, friends. This mama is just telling it like it is.

I'm going to roll over and go back to sleep now. Wake me up when Curious George ends.

*You might be thinking I put them to bed too early - but it doesn't matter if they go to bed at 8:00 or 11:00 (we've tried various bed times). They still wake up by 6:00. They might sleep in until 6:30, but I'm not willing to let them stay up for two extra hours because they might sleep in for half an hour.