Insert song, “I will survive.”

I found this little post hanging out in my blog “draft” folder tonight.  I, most likely, became distracted or didn’t have time to finish it and ultimately forgot it was there.  (I started the post ranting about the first week of school and ended it discussing internal clocks and rodeos.  Like I said, somewhat distracted.)  Reading it tonight, threw me back in time to the first week of school last year, and reminds me that we have only a few short weeks until we start it all over again.  Alarm clocks, homework, dance, routine, morning “disagreements,” lunch boxes, etc., etc., etc.  Ready or not, it’s almost here!

August 2010…We did it.   We survived the first week of school, and it didn’t kill us.  (I did, however, almost kill my oldest daughter a number of occasions, but I didn’t.)  Mornings are definitely not a highlight of our days by any stretch, but hopefully with a few more weeks under our belts, they will get somewhat tolerable.  I never believed in “morning people/night owls” until I married Mel.  Even then, when I realized that we had opposite internal clocks, I felt he could certainly change his ways, and become more productive in the mornings, like me,  if he so chose. Naivety at its best.

I have, on a number of mornings, announced aloud my desire to awake ONE day to smiling family members.  Funny.   How ironic to angrily demand that my family smile.

I do.  I wake up with the greatest of ease.  I jump up happy, ready to begin.  I have had to learn the hard way that not everyone can do this.  McCanless will never be a morning person.  I know that.  I believe that.  I live that.  Last year it took me a while to master our morning routine so that we could accomplish two things:  1)  Making it to school before 8AM without killing each other and/or loosing our voices from the yelling  2)  Arriving to school with clothes ON.

I always make breakfast.  I always give her time to adjust and awake.  I always let her be.  I have never restricted McCanless in her choice of clothing.  (The matching bubbles and bows and smocked dresses went out when she gained the power of language and independence at age two.  She is head strong beyond belief and to attempt to change that would ruin her spirit and change the McCanless that I know and have learned to appreciate.)

Yet, every morning is the same.  Hard to wake up.  Hard to get moving.  Hard to breathe.  So what to do?  I just accept the fact that my children and husband are not like me.   It takes a while longer for their engines to get rolling.   Just like they had to accept the fact that Friday night I stayed home when they went to the Rodeo at 8PM.  I was done.  The thought of going to a loud, crowded, Rodeo after dark was not something I was ready for.  Mel packed them up and headed out without me….

And just because I’d like to share…

this photo (that I took last week one morning) sums up my girl in the wee hours of a morning quite nicely. Can’t wait till next month!

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