Early Riser

So, Ethan has decided that 6:30 is his favorite wake-up time. Well, sometimes it is 6:00 or 7:00 or even 5:30 or 7:15, but I would say on average, it is 6:30. The problem is, I do not wake up until 8:00 or 8:30. Maybe I open my eyes and walk around before then, but my mind and soul is protesting with every fiber of its being. We have now explained to Jacob what the word "grumpy" means - it has become sadly relevant to his daily life.

The worst is that Ethan doesn't act rested and chipper - just wide awake and mad. So I get to listen to him scream while I battle against everything in me telling me that I should be asleep. I have tried putting him to bed earlier, later, anything I can think to try, and we still end up awake at 6:30 am and neither of us happy.

I wonder how I can reset my circadian rhythms. I mean, surely I can train myself to be awake at 6:30, right? I would need to be asleep by 10:30, which is basically impossible in our home, but then it would work, right? However, all through high school, trying to get up at 6:30 or 7, my body never got used to it - it was always painful. So I worry that I am genetically programmed to not wake up early.

On another topic, I have called the landlord about Ethan's room smelling like cats. They are going to come pull up the carpet and put primer on the cement. The carpet in the entire apartment was cleaned before we moved in, so they don't think it could be the carpet itself. And now Heath informs me, "I have never smelled cats in that room!" Maybe it is my sleep deprivation causing me to smell imaginary cat odor...

I truly need a day of rest. We have missed out because of using weekends to work on our house to get it on the market. (And who knows how much longer we will continue to miss out before it is ready?)

s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d

Today I logged back onto my blog after a long hiatus in order to make sure it was suitable for reading by people who actually know me. :-S Some of our friends have blogs now, and I could post comments using my blogger name, except I wasn't sure I wanted to until I checked it over. I decided, I guess it is ok.

Today and yesterday have been awful, terrible, days I want to forget and never live through again. We just moved, 2 weeks ago Saturday, and so there is all the normal craziness, must-get-done-or-the-world-will-fall-apart things. But then I have 2 small children set on defying me and making my head explode. No, really. I mean, Jacob actually said, "I'm going to ______" whatever I had just asked him not to do, in a sing-song, elementary school teasing voice. I said, "Well you better not or you will get in trouble." He says, "YOU'LL get in trouble." It would be funny if it wasn't so infuriating. Meanwhile Ethan pooped on the floor this morning and his room smells inexplicably like cats. (The floor-poop incident didn't happen in his room if that is what you are thinking....) They are also both determined to remove every rubber piece off of every door stopper in the apartment, and store them in their mouths until discovered (we didn't have these in our previous home). Then, our new bank wanted to hold the funds from Heath's first paycheck in our account for 5 days before we could access them. Hello, bills?

Come back tomorrow, everything will be better then. Right? We honestly have been having a good time in our new city, until this recent personality transformation in our children. I know that God wants us here, and He will help us through it all. We're being stretched, but stretched isn't always bad, you know? (feels terrible awful today, but hopefully I will be happy in the long run when I learn to clean poop off the floor with a smile) Meanwhile my only goal in life is to find a babysitter so we can have date nights (or even just 5 minutes away from our children).