Waking with the birds

Ugh. I really do not like mornings. I am by no definition a morning person. I wish I was, it might make life a little easier. To rise with the sun, enjoy breakfast & a morning cuppa in solitude before any of the minions wake for the day.

 Ha, who am I trying to kid. Even if I was a morning person who woke when the birds did, solitude would never happen. Because our minions are morning people. Ugh, again. 

{Mummy, I can hear the beach.}

This morning I did not wake with the birds, I was woken by Blake who woke with Doug as he got ready for work. After Doug had left for work, Blake then woke Will, who woke Jack, Ben & Rianan before coming into our room to wake Clay as well.

Fighting against the inevitable, I stayed in bed with Clay to keep me company (while he had his morning feed). As the minutes ticked by the noise levels slowly crept up.

 What started out as some quiet chattering, soon turned into giggles, then shrieks, before evolving into screams. Of both joy & sibling torture. 

With a big sigh, I get out of bed, hoping it is only their behaviour that has disintegrated & not the house too. 

{Seeing the kids running back, Blake turned around half way to dash back & managed to win the race.}

All that hoping was futile.

Blankets (at least ten, a combination of quilts & big fleece blankets) pillows, pyjama shirts, Clay's toys, pencils & textas, drawings half finished, unwanted drawings screwed up & dropped around the table. 

 {Rianan was the only one who managed not to turn into a drowned rat.}

Attitudes were running riot, angry words thrown about between Ben & Jack. Blake & Will running around & screeching at the top of their lungs. Clay just took in the hullabaloo, clinging to the safety of my arms. 

{Clay in the sling, camera strap wound multiple times around my wrist, every one & every thing is safe.}

Painfully & strenuously order was gained inch by inch. Blankets were put into bedrooms (right in the doorway but at least they were in the relevant rooms. A small win) pyjama shirts were put back on & toys put away.

Will lost it at breakfast time. He asked for nutri-grain for breakfast, & he was served nutri-grain for breakfast. He's three & entitled to change his mind as his whim takes him. As far as I could tell I think that is what caused the end of his world, if his cries were anything to go by.

 Blake lost it when I served him nutri-grain too, when he had asked for cornflakes. I had nutri-grain on the brain. What evs. It is far to early for this crap.

Fast approaching brain oozing levels, the unwanted nutri-grain I served Blake was dumped & his bowl refilled with cornflakes. 

{Jack's 'baby jellyfish' he named "Squishy".}

By this stage Ben, Rianan & Jack were on to their second bowls & in their rush to beat one another sugar was spilt, milk was splashed & weet bix crumbled all over the floor.

I finally get my own bowl filled & sit down at the table next to Blake...who is making an earth & moon image with his spoon...in his milk...on the table.

Getting dressed meant running around with (clean) underwear on top of their head. Brushing their teeth entailed painting the shower door with (used) toothpaste, the toothbrushes their tools. Putting dirty pyjama's into the dirty washing basket was interpretted to throwing them around the bedrooms. 

It was time to get them out the house before I went bald & the day, along with my mood, deteriorated any further.

 Mornings {usually} run smoother when we have a place to be, a schedule to stick to. Required to be in a specific place within a certain time. 

I may love the idea of a lazy morning, but it doesn't love me back. 

{Jack was so excited to find a dinosaur bone, I didn't have the heart to wipe out his elation.}

A quick detour to pick up a vanilla mocha for me, some biscuits & water for the kids, then we were on our way. 

Feet on the sand, wind in our hair & sun on our faces.  

Shells in our hands & seaweed around our ankles.

"Don't get wet" I said.

"Yes Mum" they replied.

 But it's ok, the beach saved our day.   

We went home with a boot full of wet & sandy clothes.

Barely clothed boys in their seats. 

With smiles on our faces & moods back to their

 normal optimum optimistic levels.

{A bit wet there Jack?}

I don't love mornings, but I do love our minions.

Hopefully they all sleep in tomorrow morning...

A futile hope. 

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Forty winks torture

My encephalon (thank you Thesaurus) is refusing to make any consistent effort today so I'm just gonna launch straight into it.

Mr. Sandman, can you please ensure you have our address on your list tonight. The kids need you. Though if you could keep well clear of myself that would be much appreciated. I don't need any help falling asleep. In fact quite the opposite after last nights efforts from the younger four minions. Most nights see us catching a few decent hours of shut eye & it has been a while, maybe three weeks, since the minions have chosen involuntary insomnia as their weapon of choice. The day following an all nighter when you are thirty is nothing close to the perky bounce back when you are twenty. Today I am hurting.

Last night was a shocker. Within the first hour of crawling my weary derriere in to bed the little beasts had me up six times. I didn't bother keeping score after that. I also didn't keep count of the times that my head remained glued to my pillow & Doug got up in my place. It's a well known fact keeping someone awake for extraordinary lengths of time is a form of torture. I thoroughly concur with this statement. Waking someone within minutes of them falling into a decent state of slumber is inhumane. Based on personal experience, three minutes is the peak time to wake the sleeping person to reach optimum levels of brutal,cold blooded torment. 

Blake kicked it off with a nightmare. Then Jack woke up & needed a drink. Then Blake was cold. Jack got me out of bed again because he tripped over his blanket going to the toilet. Will was next with his headbanging. In the middle of the night to lull himself back to sleep he will rock on all fours hitting his head repeatedly against the wall or the bed head while humming to himself. It is noisy, & a little disturbing. After waking Will enough to settle back to sleep normally without bashing his head against the wall, I dared to hope that this was the end of the night waking & could now try to achieve a state of REM very very soon. Nope. Blake was up again & wanting to sleep in our bed. Knowing, based on previous nights, that if this were to occur my quality of sleep would be right down there with the quantity I was (not) getting. With Blake tucked back into bed & on my way back down the long cold hallway I stopped to check all the other minions - with the hope of preempting any further wake ups.

Crawling back in bed, finally warming up & beginning to drift into a state of blissful oblivion, Clay wakes. Kill me now. I lay there for what felt like ten minutes, but was likely only one minute, listening to his grunts & whinges before giving up all pretense of hope & got out of bed to feed the ravenous little cherub.

Now 2am & I'm positive I can now get four solid hours Z time in before the alarms start their invasive racket.

Negative. Blake comes running down the hallway & into our room. By this stage I'm a desperate woman & regretting those extra hours of reading time back at 10pm. I throw in the towel & open up the bed covers for Blake to crawl into. At this point I'll take even just the illusion of sleep, to keep my eyes closed but my level of conscious firmly in place, & be grateful for it. There's little choice with a miniature sleeping body right next to me, breathing in my face & dribbling on my hair.

The wee hours of the morning finally saw me achieve my first cycle of rapid eye movement. 

4am & I was up again to take a blissfully sleeping Blake back to his own bed.

5am kicks off with Doug's alarms.

6am greets me with the sounds of Blake & Will awake, already starting their day down in the lounge room. Somehow they have synced their internal body clock with Giggle & Hoot.

If you see me today & notice that I look exactly as I feel, do not say anything. 

I feel tired, I feel exhausted, I feel haggard. You have been warned that I am feeling a little stabby. I'm doing my best to rein it in, given I have little people surrounding me & their bedtime isn't approaching for another four hours (& counting). 

However if you wish to bless me with a super soaker size of pure caffeine you are more than welcome too.