Morning Routine

As mentioned before in an earlier post (see Sleeping Bear Dunes), I at one point wished that our second baby (now known as Elsie) would be on my team, as both Olivia & Nathan seem to have the same measured demeanor. Well, I got my wish, and it's manifested itself in a number of ways, although nothing so clearly as in our morning routine.

Here's how it usually goes:

4:00-5:00 AM - At some point, Olivia will wake up with a great line from her current dream (see the carnitas post for one such example), and then promptly go back to sleep.

5:30 AM - Elsie wakes up to nurse. "Wakes up" is really a misnomer, as she mostly just shuffles around in the bed until she finds something warm - sometimes it's me, sometimes it's Nathan's elbow, at which point she actually does wake up a bit to protest.

5:45 AM - Wide awake after a morning feeding, I get out of bed, turn on the monitor, and put my heavy feather pillow between Elsie and the edge. Then I sneak off to do clandestine things, like check email or eat some breakfast. Sometimes I even get to brush my teeth!

7:30 AM - I hear Miss Elsie in the monitor talking away to the morning spirits. Again, "talking" is a misnomer here as well, because it's more like balking or yelling "bah!" or "aah-ah!" over and over.

7:40 AM - I hear Nathan calling for help - Elsie has found his elbow again and is voraciously trying to nurse it.

8:00 AM - Miss Olivia sits up straight in bed and says in a sing-songy voice, "Good morning, everybody!"

Now the fun ensues - with all the girls awake, Nathan fights to stay asleep for as long as possible. It sometimes works, except for those fiesty mornings when Olivia jumps in bed with us and crawls all over Nathan, which is almost every morning (at this point, the similarity between father and daughter #1 ends, as, even though she's a night owl, she still manages to be a morning sparrow, too!). Then follows a period of loud songs and questions and prayers all mixed into one, at which I am amazed at Nathan's abilty to sleep through. Sometimes I take pity on him and shepherd the girls out into the other rooms of the house so that he can catch a few more precious moments of sleep.

8:30 AM - After running around and trying to catch Olivia long enough to wrangle her into clothes, nevermind combing her hair, I am able to sit her in her chair to eat breakfast. Elsie is earnestly chomping at whatever is in graspable distance, and Nathan finally gets out of bed so that he can get to work by 9 AM (ideally).

Then of course comes the usual melee that precedes leaving the house, with all the running into, almost tripping on, and stepping over each other! We finally get Nathan to work and come home again, only to get home again and want to sleep.

The best, however, are those sleep-in days!