A Night Owl in a Land of Morning People

I have no idea how it happened but I am a night owl living amongst morning people.

This is one of the problems of not living together before you get married. There is no way to tell that you are accidentally marrying a morning person. I'm not sure he would claim to be a morning person but his willingness to get up early enough to not rush in the morning, his ability to actually make it out the door for a 6:30 am flight, his inability to sleep past 9:00 on a Saturday morning, and his ability to fall asleep before 10:30pm most nights all point to the fact that he is in reality a morning person. I mean he's not one of those crazy people that gets up at 5:00am to read and have some quiet time before everyone else is up (I'm looking at you Jen), but comparatively he is a morning person.

And this morning person passed on his morning person genes to our kids. I have tried and tried to break them of their 6:30 waking. I have kept them up later hoping they would sleep in only to have them still wake up early but be tired and all of us grumpy the next day. I have tried blackout curtains and making a rule that they cannot get out of bed before 7:00am only to be awakened by them playing mini sticks in their room.

I thought I had finally done it, finally won the battle for later mornings after our trip to Oregon last month. We arrived late the first day and stayed up late more nights than was healthy to celebrate summer fun. The kids body quickly switching from Central to Pacific Time. We arrived back in Wisconsin well after midnight. I was worried for that first morning. I told them they could not come out until 8:30am. But then miracle of miracles, they all slept in. The oldest until 9:30am and the youngest until 11:00am.

I worried it was a one time deal but the next morning they slept late again. Not crazy, night owl late but after 8.

My husband claimed I had broken them. He worried about school starting the next week. And then he took them to Michigan for Labor Day weekend. He took them to Eastern Daylight Savings time.

And when they returned they woke up early... way, way too early.

This morning they were playing and arguing an hour before my alarm even needed to wake me. They woke up full of energy, ready to play and be loud and full of life.

I had a good thing there for a couple of days.

And then my husband ruined it.

And the thing that really gets me about all this, the thing that bothers me most about being a night owl in a house of morning people, is the we're superior attitude they have. The we have the right to be loud in the morning, the judgmental look I get when I open my book in bed at 10:30 at night, the sigh that escapes my husband when I start a conversation just as he wants to go to bed. And it's not just at home. Restaurants and stores and even Starbucks close their doors to me just when I am ready to go.

This world is not made for night owls.

At least my house isn't.

Nor my new home town.

And don't think I haven't tried to change. I've made myself go to bed earlier. I've gotten up earlier. I've tried it all.

But I am a night owl. It is who God made me to be.