Beginning to Resent Mornings

"Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious." -William Feather 
Here's my problem.  I'm not a nice mommy until at least 7am. At best, I am a quiet, silently grouchy mommy; but more usually I'm an irritable, cranky, not in the mood to play kind of mommy until at least seven, sometimes later.  And now that my daughter's average wake time is 5 am, I am having a big problem being around to her for the two hours before I become a passably nice mommy.

She wants to play eighteen kinds of pretend at six, and I just can't rouse my soul into a friendly shape at that hour. So I just end up being a unwilling participant and Maeve makes pointed comments about how I don't have to be mad. But I can't explain to her that all my aches and pains are worse in the morning, that I'm still tired and not at all excited about facing the prospect of a day full of demands, fights over the potty, dragging her out the door on errands, and all the meals, dishes, laundry, and inevitable guilt I will feel over, say, the shower doors' perpetual state of uncleanliness. All of that is what stretches out before me at six, before my natural positivity and caffeine kick in.

And so I beg her to watch another episode of something, just so I can spend a little more time at the computer, writing and catching up, until I can shape my soul into a mother again. And I feel more guilt, because I just begged my child to watch tv instead of play, which goes against everything I believe in. Except at six in the morning, when I just don't have it in me to be a good mother.

At six, I am a terrible mother. At seven, it gets better. A little. What a wonderful mother I would be if my child slept till eight, I can't imagine. She wouldn't think of me as naturally irascible, she would just see the smiles of a well-rested, sane person. But at this moment, I worry she won't remember me that way, and it ruins me a little.

Sink playtime yesterday. Glad you can't see my shower.