The Early Riser

Most mornings I'm up very early to write. Frankly, it's the only time I can consistently carve out time for myself. And even though it kills me to crawl out of bed at 4am, hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Needless to say, I'm always the first one up at my house. And my rule is the kids can't get up until 6am. The reason for this rule is simple: They see lights and think it's time to get up. For La Nina, this isn't a problem. She never gets up before 6am unless there is something wrong. The Magster, on the other hand, knows no such boundary, so the rule was really for her.

Lately, she has developed this habit at about 5:45am of hollering to me, "Momma is it morning yet?" To which I holler back, "No, go back to sleep." Many mornings she did just that and went back to sleep, which was great.

The other day, I moved a digital clock into her room and told her she couldn't get up until six-zero-zero. And that simple act totally changed the nature of our conversation and not for the better.

Fast forward to this morning: I didn't get up. It's just been too cold, so I slept in.

At 5:45, my angel sang out, "Momma, is it morning time?"

From bed, I answered, "What does your clock say?"

"Momma, are you in your bed?"

"Yes, Maggie, what does your clock say?"

At this point, the Dad woke up. He never believed me about these conversations, but he heard every word this morning.

"Momma, I see a five-four-nine".

"Okay, Maggie, it's not morning time."

Pause.

"Whoa, Momma, it changed. It's five-five-zero."

Thinking if I didn't answer, she'd get discouraged, I stayed silent. I was wrong.

"Momma, did you hear me? It changed. Momma, it changed. Now it's five-five-zero. Momma, you still there?"

"Maggie," says a groggy La Nina, "you're waking me up. Go back to sleep."

"Yes, Maggie, go back to sleep."

For the next ten minutes, we were given a minute by minute updates on the time. And if we didn't answer, she became louder and more persistent. Finally, by six am...morning time.. the entire family was awake and only one person was cheerful, and that person wasn't me, La Nina or the Dad. Needless to say, Maggie's digital clock suddenly stopped working. We're just not sure how that happened.