While I may rather insist that as Mrs Beeton suggested, the Mistress of the house should be an early riser if there is any hope at all of her winning the battle against all things domestic, in reality getting up early nearly kills me and at the slightest opportunity I will bury my head under the quilt and shut the world out for another five minutes or sixty five.
You see I do believe that this here body of mine was designed to rise at nine o'clock and not a minute before. That the world is up and doing it's business long before that is sheer misfortune and merely serves to remind me that I am always at odds with what is the correct way of going about things.
Half term doesn't help. Being the darling little cherub that he is, Finley resets his body clock during the school holidays and instead of charging around the house at the ungodly hour of 6.15am, as he is prone on a school day, he instead, lies in until the beautiful hour that is 8.30am, then wanders into my room and languishes under my quilt, relaying the kind of school playground gossip all Mommies secretly love to hear if only so that they can firmly establish the pecking order of their babba's in the ranks of the cool kids. After which, following a game of tents, where we both pull the duvet over our heads and share the silliest memories from Finley's babyhood, we pull on dressing gowns and make our way into another day.
This slow, snuggly hello to the morning suits me, and I feel good and alert and not constantly as if the world has dragged me kicking and screaming out of another pleasant dream and forced me to tackle an unwilling child into uniform or my own shivery body into the shower long before we are awake.
But such is life, and everyday can't be holiday and there are morning routines to be performed and childish outraged outbursts to be endured and work to be done and a life to be lead and and try as you might you can't wash the dishes in bed, nor present yourself and pyjama clad child in front of the sternest of headmistresses wearing a nightie and a dreamy expression.
Boring as it may one simply has to get out of bed.
And so I do. I get up horribly early, and don my Domestic Goddess head and perform my routines because if I didn't the world would fall apart as I so blissfully let it during the holidays, and I make breakfast and cajole a moaning child and wipe surfaces and stuff laundry into the machine and pack school bags and rub concealer under puffy eyes and forget important things and truth be told, there is a little bit of me that resents every minute of it, until the clock strikes nine and I give the universe permission to force me into enthusiastic action!
So how about you? Do you get up with the lark, joyfully whistling a happy tune, or do you growl your way through the morning, cross with the world until you feel awake? What does your morning routine look like? Is it hectic or heavenly? Are you organised or the housekeeping equivalent of Mad Mary??
Oh and tell me Sweethearts, am I the only Vintage Housekeeper in the land who secretly wishes, that on the subject of early rising, dear Mrs Beeton had kept her mouth shut??
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17 comments:
I am a night owl, and I HATE getting up before about 8:30. But lark hubby wants me to have breakfast with him at 7:15 am, so I will myself out of bed and stumble down the stairs. His idea of a lie-in is 7:30 am on Sunday!
Once my husband wakes up and gets out of bed and starts making noise in the adjoining bathroom I am awake, like it or not (and mostly I like it). That's around 6. I do however like a graceful, gentle wake-up and detest alarm clocks. I only pop out of bed immedietly if I have bread to pull out of the fridge for morning rising or am ravenously hungry and must have a protein snack NOW (I'm pregnant). BUT...then I usually get back in bed after doing those things. My husband goes out to the gym for a morning workout and our two sons sleep on and I have a half an hour or an hour of private wake-up time during which I tug my laptop up into bed, check email and cruise through the blogging world. Then I get up and dressed and get the boys ready and hopefully start breakfast before my husband is in the door in around 7:30-7:45.
I get up at 5 each morning to send my hubby off to work, and can accomplish more around the house before 6:30 when I get the children up than I can accomplish the rest of the day. That being said, I despise mornings and getting up early. I woulkd sleep until 9, 10, or (GASP) 11 all summer long if I could.
Enjoy your 9 am and don't even give it a second thought! =)
Well, the conversation in our house for the past few days has almost entirely been "I have no idea how any of us are going to get up for school on Monday!!". We've been averaging 10.30-11am waking up times all half term week - my daughter even later! And then of course you get in that awful cycle of not being remotely tired at any sort of sensible bedtime, then can't wake up early again, etc etc.
My natural waking time is 8am I think, but unfortunately that is too late for a school morning, when we all have to negotiate bathroom usage, so 7am it is. I would rather have an earlier natural wake up time though - I do think you work at your best in the morning, and all my best ideas come to me like an epiphany in my just waking moments. I also used to have a job as a teenager where I needed to be up and at work at 4am - grisly, but at the same time there is something so magical about watching the world come to life!
We managed getting up and out this morning (just) but my poor daughter gets her own breakfast, drink etc while it's my turn in the bathroom. And we had to trudge through thick snow to get to school! She is 13 now, so I guess she could get herself up and out in the morning, but I would feel too selfish staying in bed and letting her leave the house alone....
Until just this year, I hated morning. Or rather, I hated waking but wished I could enjoy the early light hours. And then I made a New Year's Resolution to create and adhere to a morning routine that is just for me. I am not a mother, so this is probably much easier said than done for you, Alison. But consider taking 10 minutes (30 if you can manage it) that are just about you and do something you love. And make sure you do it first thing, or very shortly thereafter. My routine is 1. Wake early (7 at the latest), 2. Hydrate (I slam 2 glasses of water and feel more awake right away), 3. Cleanse (teeth, face, get dressed in clean clothes), 4. Move (20 arm curls or sit ups or 2 yoga poses or something...takes about 60 seconds), 5. Sit (coffee in front of the back window), 6. Write (sometimes only a sentence). I love the routine and have come to love the morning.
Before children I was a bit of a lark married to a night owl. It is very difficult to remain a lark if you do not get to bed well before 11 pm. My husband works as an orchestral musician so is often not home before 11 and it is really rather difficult to fall and stay asleep before he arrives home. As I do the bedtime routine, he does the morning routine and lets me have a quiet time with the coffee and biscuit he brings me. I know how lucky I am but he appreciates that I wait up for him and the kitchen and house are generally tidied when he returns from a concert and there is often a homemade snack waiting for him.
I am a night owl. I swear I do my best thinking, writing, cleaning, organizing at night.
I abhor the early morning. REally I do. But I must wake up...I have a little one that thinks the minute the sun is out it is time to be up and I have 3 other kiddos needing to be dropped off at school. So no late sleeping in for me...
However I must say my internal clock is set to 9am. On the off chance I get to sleep in till 9am I swear I have better days then.
It's hard living in a world made for morning people ha!
I have to wake my kids up to get ready for school at 6:00 am. I am always miserable and cold when I get out of bed, determined to take my time in the morning and take my shower later in the day after they are gone. Being greedy with my alone time, however, I almost always realize that the more I get done early in the morning, the more time I will have to putter and relax later. This motivation wakes me from my zombie-like state and gets me going.
I'm a night owl married to a morning person. Add to that, my DH has to get up at 5 am to go to work, so his idea of sleeping in on a weekend is 7 am. Our daughter is 16 months old so I don't have to cope with school schedules yet (something I'm revelling in, because I know in 4 or 5 years I won't have this luxury again for ages), so during the week when it's just us in the morning after daddy goes to work, we have a fairly slow approach to waking up. I generally let her eat breakfast in her PJs--because whatever she's wearing will have to go in the laundry, covered in food, anyway--and I join her (dressed). Then, like right now, she wanders around looking at the birds out in the yard or "reading" a book while I hop online for a few minutes, make a grocery list, whatever. Then we get her dressed and go do whatever we need to go do. If we don't have to go anywhere, DD "helps" me with laundry or vacuuming or whatever needs doing that day. I'm lucky enough to be a freelancer, so when I have work I do it from home, usually during her naptime.
I completely agree--it's hard to get going in the morning when you feel like you've been dragged up against your will. DH is away on a business trip this week, and I confess to sleeping in until 9 this morning (DD will snuggle in with me and sleep late too), just because I knew no one would be calling early to wish me good morning. :) But now I have this vaguely guilty sense that I'm somehow behind for the day. Ah well.
I used to be a night person until I had a job that sometimes started at 5:30am!, and was forced to change the way I live. I hated mornings, before the internet, but now have a routine where I get up before everyone else to start "my" day, catching up on all the blogs I love (like yours!), and doing a bit of shopping on eBay. Now I am so exicted to find what all my lovely "friends" are up to, I can hardly stay in bed, and often find myself up around 5:00am.
I'm solar powered-- my body's natural inclination is to wake up at sunrise, and go to sleep (or at least quit doing anything requiring serious thought or effort) at sunset. I get a lot more done during the summer!
I have to get up at 5am for work and resent every moment!
I'm with you!
I am not, nor have I ever been, a Morning Person. I can do it (and did it for years) when the Devil's driving, but only with great reluctance. I've been blessed recently by finding a job that doesn't require me to be in for cock-crow. Thereby allowing me the heretofore unheard of luxury of easing into my morning.
Ali
Oh, this pronouncement by Mrs. Beeton was ugly and unfair! Only a born Morning Person would say such a thing. A smug person, probably.
My inner clock is tuned to morning and has been since I can remember. It is a good thing, too, as I really get alot accomplished while the rest of the world sleeps. Then if I need to re-charge during the day I can squeeze in a catnap, as I am married to the night owl who likes my company after supper.
And as far as Mrs.Beeton goes, I think she just mayhave been from the time where it took ALLDAY to do anything, so to get it started as early as possible was the norm.
I'm totally with The Hausfrau! Lol.
I'm definitely not an early riser. I'm not really a night owl-although I'll stay up past 11, that's when I really start to drag and be tucked in to bed but not sleeping yet. My internal clock waking time is usually 9 am though, or later if it's summer and I've gone to bed later. Then, it's usually exactly 8 hours since I've fallen asleep.
Since I'm a student who works part time, I rise between 7:30 and 8:30 depending on the day, and generally rush around getting ready and making my lunch so that I can get out the door without being too late to work. Lucky I have an understanding boss!
I've struggled with someone else, or an alarm, waking me up since I was a child! I think I would have been a happier child if I could have slept until I woke up by myself, before going to school...
I think some people are just not "wired" to wake up early. At least nowawadays, there are more options where one can create a career suited to their sleeping needs! ;)
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