5:24

I am in a deep and dreamless sleep. In the background is noise. Slowly the noise trickles through and becomes words... "Mama, can I go to kitchen?" Hold on here, give me a minute. I open my eyes, but it is still pitch black. I sense more than see the presence of a small child. A small child who is clearly not sleeping and has no intention of going back to sleep. It is 5:24 a.m. This is not a good day. It has been a week of these early risings: 5:37/ 5:41/5:59.  No... those are not the times we ate dinner in our house this week. These are the times my "Sweet Baboo" (a.k.a. "Ryan") has been waking up. Let me tell ya, he is in danger of losing the "Sweet" from Sweet Baboo! I found 5:59 particularly cruel. 6:00 is somewhat civilized, but one minute earlier is just wrong. There are children who sleep. A lot. I had one of those with my eldest, Caitlin. Life was good. She was happy. We were happy. And then there are children who do not sleep. And that is not good. Ryan is one of those kids. It was apparent almost from day one that he was not very interested in sleep. There was too much going on and he did not want to miss a thing. At age one he went through a particularly long streak of early risings. For the first few weeks I would stumble into his room and turn on soft music and attempt to rock him back to sleep. He would indulge me and snuggle up to my shoulder. Just as I began to ease my way out of the glider he would pop his head off my shoulder and give me a huge (and very awake) smile. The expression on his face was clear "you're kidding, right? I'm not going back to sleep, we've got a whole day ahead of us!" With great enthusiasm and conviction, Ken & I tried to teach Ryan the ways of our household. Small children go to bed early, ideally 7:30. Ideal wake time is 7:30, however if you must arise earlier, browse the selection of books in your room until a qualified adult comes to retrieve you. Caitlin was on board with this plan and it was very satisfactory. Ryan, was not on board. And he was vocal about it. And, unfortunately, the kids' rooms are right next to each other with minimal insulation between their rooms. And the only thing worse than a child awake at 5:24 a.m., is two children awake at 5:24 a.m. It makes for a very long day. So we go through great lengths to escort Ryan away from Caitlin's room in the wee hours of the morning. Not surprisingly, if you start the day at 5:24, you may find the need for a little snooze during the day. Hence, the photo above of Ryan in his car seat. I call it his "bird in a cage trick". When we are in the car & he is tired, he simply puts the blankie over his head and conks out. It is great for him. Not so great for the Mom who is driving and had visions of mother/son nap bonding time at home. But for all of his early risings, I envy Ryan. He can be very, very pleasant with minimal sleep. Me, I'm not nearly so nice on minimal sleep.  I keep hoping Ryan will recognize this and teach me to stay in my room until 7:30 a.m. every morning looking at books. So far, no luck. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to hang in there until Ryan's sixteen and he gets to drive while I conk out in the backseat.