My Little Alarm Clock

As I'm sure you've guessed by noting the hour at which some of these blogs are posted, I stay up late at night. This is when most of my writing gets done, both on books and for Families.com. I also like to update my food and weight loss journals on my other blog, and catch up on things that didn't get done during the day (like, everything.) It's often 2:00 before I'm in bed, and then my brain is thinking about everything I need to get done the next day. Lately, it's been around 3:00 am before I've been getting to sleep.

My two-year-old has been sleeping on the bottom tier of a bunkbed for about a month now, I guess. It was time -- his crib kept falling apart and there was no point in buying a new crib just to take it down a month later. He loves his bed, and his brother loves sleeping on top -- but there's a problem. No side rails.

At some point between 6:30 and 7:30 every morning, I'm awakened to a little face staring intently into mine. The conversation goes something like this:

Him: "Morning, Mama! Up! Up!"

Me: "Benjamin, it's still dark outside. Let's go back to sleep."

Him: "No asleep, Mama. Time a get up!" He takes my hands. "Holding hands. Jump up!"

Me: "But I'm sleeping."

Him: "Come on, Mama! Come a me!"

And he goes toddling out. I know full well that if I don't follow him, there will be catastrophe. Yesterday morning it was a bag of brown sugar all over the floor, including the carpet. Other mornings it has included pen scribbles all over my flat-screened monitor, which I still haven't cleaned off because I don't want to hurt the screen. (Any suggestions on that would be greatly appreciated.) But it's really hard to stay awake when you've only been asleep for three or four hours, so I generally fall back asleep on the couch, the melodious, soothing of Dora the Explorer or the Wonder Pets lulling me to sleep.

There are worse ways to be awakened, that's for sure. He's as cute and sweet as they get. But my husband has tonight off, so he'll be here at 6:30 in the morning and he has promised to hold the fort down and let me sleep. He's under orders not to wake me up until ten. I'm almost giddy, I'm so excited.