My husband and I are morning people. We're up right before the sun rises, and we're in bed by the time the sun sets. So we figured when we had kids, they would follow in our early morning footsteps.
Well, one did. The other one? Not so much.
In the beginning he had to get up with us- at least when he started sleeping through the night. But once he became a teenager, things started to change. Especially now that he's graduating high school.
Tweet, tweet, tweet...hoot.
There was an old cartoon of an owl family who had three eggs ready to hatch. They were classical birds in this case, and when the owlets hatched, two sang in perfect classical tones- but the third? He was all jazz. Oh yes, people, we classical birds are now living in the jazz era. Our son can't seem to rise before ten o'clock on the weekends, and that's when we wake him. Once we let him sleep in and he wasn't down the stairs before two o'clock in the afternoon. Yikes!
For you other night owls out there, two o'clock is when the morning birds' energy starts to wane. By the time he's in high energy mode, we're ready for a nap. This makes for some interesting family adventures.
Not to mention a challenge every school day. For twelve years. Ugh.
My daughter is the exact opposite- she's up before my husband and I are, and usually has her chores done before we're out of bed. This is a child born to love the early life of a rancher or farmer, and her love of horses is sending her right in that direction. She lives to be up at the crack of dark, and if she does work at a ranch, she'll fit right in. By the time we get up for a family trip (usually around six a.m.), she has breakfast made so we can all eat and move, move, move.
That's if we can get Hooty out of bed.
Even the smell of freshly made breakfast won't stir him out of slumber at six in the morning! We wind up waking him up at least three times before dragging him out of bed (sometimes literally!) to get dressed so we can go. Nine times out of ten he's sleeping in the car on the way to our destination, while the three of us are chattering away with excitement.
Lunchtime is about when the energy levels equal out, and we can all get along for about an hour or so. My son will start to interact with us, and we morning birds still have the energy to belt out road trip songs as we go on our merry way. By the afternoon we're dragging while he wants to explore. By night time he's excited and full of energy and the rest of us are travelling zombies.
Our not-so-little owl will be flying off to college this fall, and I can't help but wonder if he'll survive the morning classes. I also wonder how the family dynamic will change when there's three morning birds left in the nest. I suspect a lot less drama and earlier starting times in the future!
It's not easy for morning birds to raise an owl (and I suspect the opposite is also true of owlish parents raising a morning bird), but I think we did a pretty good job.
After all, if he can survive us, he can survive anything!
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