It's morning.  Sunshine is splashing in the window.  The house is pretty peaceful and quiet.  That's how it's starting to be every morning.  While I used to roll out of bed, tired and annoyed, somewhere around 11am, I'm finding that I like my morning ritual of being up by seven, woken by the kids as they get up and request breakfast.  It's quiet and peaceful.

It used to be that someone else would get up with the kids.  My family was so scattered with people on different sleep schedules.  Often times I would be up late with someone, and in turn someone else would have to get up early with the kids.  I hated it.  It felt like I was missing so much, but I didn't know what else to do.  My life kind of demanded that schedule.

When the co-op started a couple weeks back, I had to make a drastic change in my life.  I was up in the morning, ready to go, though exhausted, at 7am.  We were out the door an hour and a half later and I was expected to function, be aware, and be a good mom.  That first week was trying, I'll admit.  I was exhausted, understandably so since my sleep schedule hadn't even begun to change over.  I felt so out of place and I almost hated my new sleep schedule before I really gave it a chance.

Almost three weeks later I'm finding that I don't feel driven to try and wake up early on only one day of the week.  Most days the latest I sleep in is 8, and that's only because the kids sleep in too.  Most mornings I'm up not much after 7am.  It's been nice.  It makes the day seem so much longer, and by 10pm, I'm about ready to call it a night.  I'm starting to feel like a normal mom these days.  I have to admit, it's pretty wonderful!

Now my mornings are a very different creature.  I wake up to the kids asking me if they can have breakfast most mornings, if I don't wake up just before they do.  It's the same thing every morning.  They wake up, get dressed, and ask me if they can have breakfast.  Every morning I tell them the same thing, that they can make it when they're ready, as long as they're quiet.  Chesh works overnights, so they can't be loud while he's trying to catch up on sleep during the day.  They go from breakfast to wanting to color, look at books, or ask me a million questions.  Mornings are surprisingly quiet around here, aside from on co-op days.  I'm actually enjoying my mornings, even though I always swore I was never much of a morning person.

Co-op days, on the other hand, are all kinds of chaotic.  We all get up at 7am and there's a mad dash for my older two to get dressed while I get the littlest breakfast.  As I'm getting dressed and doing something with my hair to keep it from my face all day, the older two join the littlest for breakfast.  Then there's a bustle of activity as I get the little one ready and my older two brush their hair, check their bags to make sure everything's packed for class (though they do most of it the day before), and I go about putting my older son's hair back in a ponytail, since class is probably so much easier when his hair isn't in his face.  He hates his hair pulled back in a ponytail.  Then my daughter decides last minute that she wants me to do her hair too (which thankfully I've anticipated and started on the hair earlier), so I have to figure out something for that.  Thankfully, most days a ponytail is good enough for her.  I'm thinking I've got to get some pretty barrettes or hair clips for her too because then we'll have so many more options while her hair is still too short to do much with.  Once it's longer she and I may have to get up earlier so I can do different things for her.  I double check my supplies in the diaper bag (which I'd already stocked the day before), fill the littlest's sippy cups, and hand my older two juice, fruit snacks, rice cakes, and apple sauce while they make their sandwiches.  Then my little snails and I head out to the car.  I've decided my older two are racing snails, while the littlest is just your regular old sluggish snail.  They're at the car with everything packed up and in the car before my littlest and I finally make our slow descent down the stairs.  Once we've made that last step, however, everyone races to the car.  The older two hop in the back and the littlest tries to convince me he's old enough to ride in a regular car seat so he can get into the seat himself.  It's not going to be long before he's in a forward facing seat, so maybe that will change.  Once everyone's in and buckled, we're off for the half hour drive up to the co-op while I'm eating something quick for breakfast on the way.  One of these days I'm going to actually start making breakfasts, I swear!

One would think I wouldn't like the co-op days in comparison to the calm, relaxed mornings every other day.  I've never been much for getting up in the morning to hit the ground running.  Everyone knows I prefer to relax in the morning and slowly work my way into whatever I'm doing for the day.  Strangely, I like the co-op days so much more.  I kind of wish we did the co-op more than once each week!  I can't even imagine what I would do if we didn't sign up for the co-op again next semester!  I think I've got to start looking for more activities to get the kids involved in so we'll have more opportunities to get up and go in the morning.  That way the kids can have more fun activities to do every day and I'll have all the more reason to get everyone up, going, and out the door in the morning.  Who would have thought it's the crazy mornings where we've got to get ready and out the door would be my favorite?

For years I thought these early morning starts were just too early.  It was torture to have to get up before 8am, and anything before 9 was just unlikely.  Now I think 8am is sleeping in and anything after 9 is just unreasonable!  I'm working towards getting up at 7am every morning, and would be willing to get up earlier if need be.  I think I might just get into the trend of being a morning person.

The funny thing is I used to use early mornings as a reason why my kids don't go to school.  I didn't want to get up early to get them fed, dressed, and out the door in time for school.  Now I'm realizing that's not a problem for me at all, and probably wouldn't be.  The problem comes in at putting them on the bus.  Of course, I can work around that by driving them to school.  Then the problem would be leaving them at school all day.  In general, my reasons for homeschooling go far beyond getting up in the morning.  I have no problem dropping them off in their classes at the co-op, but that's a family-oriented event, very different than dumping your kids in school and leaving to spend the day doing other things.

I guess this dynamic change to being a morning person has really made an impact on my life.  It's made me realize that my laziness in the morning has absolutely nothing to do with my choice to homeschool.  If anything, since the co-op, it's been even more of a motivation not to be lazy, to pick up and start doing the things I need to be doing.  It's given me the gift of enjoying my mornings with my children, whether it's a crazy, chaotic morning on the go, or a lazy morning where I can hang out with my kids while drinking tea and being as lazy to make my own breakfast as I want.  Morning's are perhaps the best time of the day for me, right up there with watching my kids head off to bed, tired and excited for whatever tomorrow will bring.