Morning Bird or Night Owl? Who Decides.

Are you more of a night or morning person?

When you have two children under the age of five, and both you and your spouse work full time, you’re forced to be the early bird and the night owl.

The constant revolving door of responsibilities that comes with parenthood leaves you stuck on Groundhog’s Day listening to The Song that Doesn’t End while running on a treadmill preset to speed 10, incline 8.

You wake up still recovering from the day before. Drop off at daycare, head into the city for work, sit at a desk for roughly 8 hours, head home from the city, pick up from daycare, make dinner, prep breakfasts and lunches for the next day, bedtime routine and two hours of “child-free time.”

The next morning is a brave attempt to set a Guinness World Record for an adult getting ready for work – shower, dress, do hair, brush teeth, do makeup and/or shave. Theoretically, this must be accomplished within the time set by two gremlins whose wake-up time tends to be unpredictable. It’s an unachievable goal, I know. Considering the early-morning chaos is never late nor early, the thought of breaking records is a pipe dream. And I can count on my left hand how many times this goal was narrowly missed. More times when we had one child to worry about.

We’re fortunate enough to have somewhat mastered the bedtime routine with two. Our 1 year old’s bedtime routine comes first.

The 1 year old goes to sleep more easily now, but getting there is the challenge. She fights dirty. It’s usually Monday Night RAW in the nursery. Single leg takedowns, double leg takedowns, half-Nelsons, sprawls. I should charge admission.

Once that’s over, the nighttime negotiating with the 4 year old begins. The 4 year old isn’t as much of a sack of flopping potatoes and can get himself ready with strong, encouraging directions. As soon as hit head hits the pillow, it’s time to play Deal or No Deal.

“Read me a book”

“Not tonight, buddy. It’s really late.”

“OK, I’ll read it to myself. I’ll do the pictures and you can do the words.”

Or maybe he’s thirsty one night.

“I want milk.”

“You can have water.”

“How about juice?”

“No, water.”

“OK, juice mixed with water.”

Eventually, he gets to sleep and we can pop downstairs to watch a few episodes of the latest Netflix show.

During that “child-free time,” our son’s bedroom door creeks open several times within an hour span because he’s thirsty, has to go to the bathroom, needs to blow his nose, dropped his book, or comes to inquire why we’re not asleep. By the time he’s settled, and we get ourselves to bed, it’s 11 p.m.

If all is well, we’re met with very few bedside checkins. Other times, which happen more often than we would like, we’re greeted by the early morning sounds of a creaking bedroom door, heavy feet walking across the carpeted hallway, our bedroom door handle turning and bouncing back as if it was being shot off like a cannon and a faint huffing sound from the mouth of a four-year-old annoyed that we’re still asleep. If we’re lucky, he goes back to his bedroom. Most mornings, at around 4 a.m., I hear heavy breathing in my ear and a loud whisper:

“Mommy, I want to say something.”

“What do you want to say, honey?”

“I love you”

I can’t get mad at that interaction.

Sometimes I can tell him to go back to bed and he does. Others he puts up a fight, which is typical for a little boy. He just wants to snuggle, use our bathroom, get a toy from downstairs or wants to tell me something.

Regardless, those moments tend to happen at 4 or 4:30 in the morning. Needless to say, that’s when my day really starts.

We wake up early because we have little choice. We stay up late because if we don’t we wouldn’t have time to ourselves. Needless to say, there’s no real thing as being a night person or a morning person when you’re a working parent. While it’s painful at times, we try to cherish the good moments because we know they won’t last forever.