Mornings Come Too Early

School day mornings are the worst in my household. With the yell of the alarm, the protests begin. “I don’t want to get up! I’m sleepy! Just five more minutes! It’s too early for this!” But the school bus is coming, and it’s time to get moving. With fierce grumblings and much stomping of feet, the morning toilet run commences. With eyes still bleary and face squinched in a snarl, clothes are fumbled on. Of course, the shirt has been put on backwards. More scowls and grumbles. At last, the dressing has been accomplished after the discovery the socks don’t match and the sneakers’ laces were left tied in a knot the night before. The angst is thick enough to cut with a knife.

And then I wake up my son to get him ready. 

Only during one part of my life have I ever been a morning person. It was a brief period, from 1972-1978, and it only happened on Saturdays and Christmas morning. On the Saturdays of my youth, I would rise at 6 a.m., eager to start the all-too-brief weekend. There was cereal fortified with a gallon of sugar to be consumed and cartoons to watch. We didn’t have Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, or any of that stuff in my day, whippersnappers. We had two channels of fuzzy reception and we were glad to have them. Now get off my lawn, you hoodlums. 

I am past those exciting days when one morning out of the week wasn’t a horrid nightmare to face. Nowadays, mornings are all about grimly facing a long slog and gulping an ocean of coffee. I hate mornings. They come too damned early. 

Even the weekends when I am allowed to sleep in a little because Hubs gets up with Kiddo, I hate mornings. My eyes peel back blearily, usually to the sound of the child literally bouncing off the walls. Sometimes he dashes into my room to bounce off my walls too. “Mommy! I’m a crashing train!” 

“Of course you are,” I mutter. I’ve remembered in the nick of time that a youngster’s imagination must be encouraged. One does not daunt her happy son’s play with screams of horror that another day has begun at the ungodly hour of 7:30 a.m. Instead I tell him, “You’re the most amazing crashing train ever.” 

Mornings. They are wrong on so many levels. This is the time when I face the knowledge that there is so much to get done in a day and not enough day to get it done within. Plus none of it can be done from my warm, soft bed. With my eyes shut. Dreaming of the cast of ‘Magic Mike’ cleaning the house, running the errands, and writing my books for me. Naked.  

 

Mornings crush my soul with that knowledge.  

Afternoons are better. My bloodstream flows with monumental levels of caffeine. I’m in the thick of the day’s battle, too busy to think how little I’ve accomplished. Evenings are when I realize the day’s fight has been lost, and I no longer give a rat’s butt. Plus I can look forward to going to bed. I can live with those times of the day.  

But mornings ... no. A thousand times, no. If Congress ever wanted to do something truly worthwhile (insert hysterical laughter here), they would abolish mornings. And Mondays. By all that’s holy, there’s the most evil creation ever: Monday mornings. 

But that’s a whole other level of horror, and not one I’m willing to face until I have no choice.