Not My Favorite Thing

I have to set my alarm clock every morning now. No more waiting until the first child awake breathes morning breath on me, screams for chocolate milk or crawls in bed with me to 'cuddle'. Nope, I am up with the roosters. (As if we had any.) For the first time in almost 6 years, I am setting my alarm clock to get up every morning. Yes, it may sound like I had been living a ridiculously easy existence, but not really. Sometimes I do not go to bed until way late, then wake up 2-3 times to tend to various urgent needs: take a child potty, changing the sheets for a child that didn't make it to the potty, give a dose of Tylenol, calm a nightmare, turn on a nightlight, cover up a cold child, etc. Granted these are not every night occurrences, but enough to make me really appreciate a full night's sleep.

In my defense, I have been akin to waking up early, years ago. I woke up at 4:55 in boot camp to run at 5 AM every morning. (OK, I was forced to do that for 8 weeks; it wasn't really optional.) However, when I was fresh out of grad school and personal training at the "Q", I usually had a 5am client that wanted to train. That meant I had to get up at 3:30am, do my workout, come back to my apartment, get ready and be at the club to train clients from 5am-12 noon, go teach 2 classes at UT Arlington , then back to the club to train clients from 4-10pm. I had no social life, but it was great fun for the 4 years that I did it!

Now I am having a hard time with this plain old 6am business...EEK!