The first sign of old age is upon me

And it's not gray hair.

When I was a little kid, we'd visit my grandparents in Florida every year. We'd go to the beach, and to Disney World, and the Kennedy Space Center. My grandparents took us out to dinner every night (according to my dad, who grew up eating her food, that was a very good thing) and we'd always have to be back from our day's activities by 4:30 or so in order to hit the early-bird specials with them. Dinner at 5:00 allowed them to be home by 7:00 and in bed by 8:30, which would allow them to be fully rested when, oh, 4:30 rolled around and they got their day started again.

As a kid, I thought they were so weird. We never ate dinner before 7pm (my dad worked in Manhattan and we lived on the far outer edge of the Connecticut suburbs, so it took him a few hours to get home), and I thought only freaks ate dinner at 5:00. But now that I have my own kids, I've adopted the early-to-bed, early-to-rise philiosophy I mocked my grandparents for.

My main problem is that I find it totally impossible to sleep past 6:30 in the morning. Annie, a champion early-riser herself, usually finds her way either into our bed or onto the floor of the playroom, whining for us by 6:15. She starts in motion the chain of events that includes Isaac waking up and Bryce slamming his door in an attempt to score a few more minutes of snooze-time. And since my side of the bed is closest to the door (note to self: sleep next to the wall in the next house), I'm the one who always gets up with the kids. If Eddie isn't up and gone at work already, he seems to think he has earned the right to sleep in.

When I was on vacation last week I was hoping to have a couple of lazy mornings where I could sleep in. But alas, it wasn't to be. On the first morning of the trip, my mom had my tired butt on the treadmill and then on the bike. The next morning, Annie was up at 6am, and she somehow managed to find me (sleeping in my sister's bed) before she woke up my parents. On Monday my mom had my sorry, sore behiney back on the bike at 5am (I told you, she's an exerciseaholic). But on Tuesday I laid down the law-- I was not going to the gym until I woke up on my own. Unfortunately, my little sister has the snooze alarm habit from hell-- it goes off every nine minutes for a full hour before she gets out of bed, and since I was sharing the bed with her, I was totally wide awake and at the gym a good half hour before she rolled out of bed. Ditto Wednesday and Thursday. When I got home I thought I'd sleep in, but every day this weekend, my eyes have been open before 6:15, whether by Annie's siren song or my own early-morning insomnia.

I'm afraid that by the time my kids are old enough that they don't wake me up at 6:15 every morning, I'll be so firmly entrenched in the early-rising pattern that I won't be able to break it. Maybe I just have to learn to embrace my early-rising self.

But you still won't find me cashing in on any early bird specials. Yet.

--originally published 3/19/06