Sunny Side Up

Since I can remember, my family has nagged on me about not being a morning person. “Oh, don’t mess with Kate in the morning!” “Kate, are you grumpy yet?” “Nobody move, Kate’s awake!” I have realized though that it is not that I am unhappy in the mornings. I just need some quiet time. When I wake up, I need about half an hour (sometimes even an hour) to be by myself. I’m not unhappy, I just need to slowly wake up. What makes me unhappy is when people start poking at me and talking to me a lot. THEN I get grumpy.

Being married to a morning person is a challenge, but we’ve worked it out pretty good. I like to get up really early and Chris likes to sleep late. This means that I can get up and read and/or stare into space for my half hour to full hour before Chris even turns over in the bed. On the weekdays, I get up to go to work much earlier than Chris does, so I usually get dressed in the quiet and I use this as my time to wake up. Its a flawless plan. A solid morning routine is truly key to a happy marriage (at least MY happy marriage).

There are times though when Chris needs to get up early with me and it really just throws me off kilter. This morning was one of them. First, it starts off all wrong because I generally don’t wake up with an alarm clock. I have one of those freak of nature bodies that is set on its own internal Timex and I can usually wake myself up when I need to. Alarm clocks bring back haunting memories to me of my Mom or Dad throwing my bedroom door open at 6:30 in the morning in high school and shouting, “TIME TO GET UP!” Its just unpleasant to wake up to. (For the record, my parents still take me up this way when I am home visiting…)  Chris, however, needs a high school marching band to get him out of bed.

So this morning I wake up to a blaring alarm clock and Chris talking 90 miles an hour about his iPhone that he is getting today (incidentally, the iPhone debacle will gets its own full entry soon). He’s talking about the weather and his schedule and what we’re doing tonight. All the lights are on, music is playing, the TV is blaring. Then he lets the dogs out, so they are bouncing all over the place. Lucy’s moaning to be fed. Molly’s laying across my freshly ironed work clothes. It is so the opposite of quiet at 7:30 in the morning that all I can do is straighten my hair and count to 10 (about 100 times).

On top of it all, Chris realizes that it is April Fools Day. Everything became an April Fools joke. I couldn’t find an earring and when I asked him if he’d seen it he said, “Yes – April Fools!” And on and on (think middle school boy). And after every joke he would bust out laughing. Then he started planning how I could use April Fools jokes during my day. “Walk in and tell your boss you quit! April Fools!” And the laughing continues…

Not. Funny. And definitely Not. Quiet.