The Times, They are A Changing

Most of my life, I have been an early bird. Up early and eagerly going after life, to bed early. Oh, I had a bought in my late teens where I stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning and slept until lunch. But overall, I've always been an early riser.

Looking back over my life, I can honestly say that most things I've accomplished in teh way of work were done before lunch. When I worked at the map company, I'd go in around 5:30 each morning. By the time I went to lunch, most of my work was completed. Same was true of the years I spent in publishing. I would get up at 4:30 and head into work; an hour at the onsite gym and then to work by 6:00. By the time lunch came around, I only had another two hours to put in.

Somehow, Will managed to change fourty years of conditioning. Will, from before his birth, has been a night owl. Most of his four years of life, he has not gone to sleep before 11:30 or midnight. Since there are many things I can't do, work realted, until after he's in bed, I would be up to 1 or 2. Then we would both sleep until 10 or 11 the next morning. It just became our routine and there seemed to be no reason to change it.

When we started going to the YMCA, I got a little better about us getting up. I'd get up about 8 or so and do my orders for the day, wake Will up about 9:30 and feed him breakfast and then hit the gym about 10:30; that was our early start to the day. :)

As the time for Will to go to school got closer and closer, I started trying to adjust his bedtime accordingly. So I started to put him in his room at 8:00, instead of 9:00. And I limited his movie watching to only one show; instead of the 2 or 3 he would beg me for.

He still pops out and bugs me for the entire hour or so of his show, but he is asleep most nights by 9:30 or 10:00 at the latest.

I didn't want to get to agressive about his bedtime until we found out if he'd be attending morning or afternoon classes, and we didn't find out until Thrusday night when we went to open house.

My goal all along has been to use the four hours a day that Will is gone to concentrate on adding new products to my website and promoting it better; to build up my business. I've also talked myself into using the first week or two to just clean up and organize my house. I'm really looking forward to this.

Well, I was until I found out the hours Will will be attending school.

The bus will pick Will up at 6:30 in the morning and return him at 11:11.

Do you realize, that until a few months ago I would still have been asleep at 11:11?

I was standing in the class room, looking at his transportation information and this vision appeared before my eyes. I was all curled up sleeping and Will walks into the bedroom and wakes me up, "Mom, I'm home from school." My stomack just fell.

So, after nearly five years of staying up late and sleeping until lunch, Will and I are going to have to adjust to a new schedule. We both will be getting up at 6 each morning with Steve. We'll all get dressed together and I'll see them both off to work and school, like freaking Mrs. Cleaver. Then I'll try to make something out of my free time. Try to force into action a brain that is use to sleeping until lunch.

Will will still be home in time for lunch, which I'll have to fix. We'll have to try to fit gym into the afternoons, then run our errands between gym and the time Steve gets off. Which will leave us just enough time to eat, bath, and go to bed with the chickens.

It's not anything that the majority of people haven't been doing every day. Just not me. Well, the times, they are a changing.