The Night Owl and the Early Bird

My older two boys could not be any different when it comes to bedtime. TJ is asking to go to bed by 8:15 p.m. (school wears him out!). We get him in bed by 8:30 and he is out as soon as his head hits the pillow. Sam goes to bed at the same time, but he is not at all tired. He can sit in the dark for an hour, singing, yelling, and just generally having a good time. TJ sleeps through all of the racket, and Bill and I ignore the vast majority of it.

In the mornings, my early bird wakes up at the crack of dawn. We've finally trained TJ to not get out of bed until his clock says 7:00 (or has he says, "Seven zero zero"). This morning, I heard him in the bathroom just after 6 a.m. Then he wandered in my room, upset. He wanted to get up, but the numbers on the clock were all wrong ("no sevens on the clock, Mama!"). I told him he needed to learn to roll over and go back to sleep. He was rather put out with me, but did climb back in bed. I asked him later when he woke up for the day. His reply? "Seven zero one". I hope he went back to sleep for that last hour. Otherwise, he'll be a zombie by supper.

Sam, on the other hand, sleeps in. He tends to wake up shortly after 8:00. He is capable of climbing out of his own bed, but for some reason, won't do it unless someone else is in the room. He sits in his bed and calls out "Hello! Morning!" as soon as he sees me pass his door. He cracks me up.

TJ has been in school for almost a month now, and is thoroughly enjoying it. I really like his teacher, and he just adores her. She said he occasionally will tell her that "my mom says I don't have to do that", but she says it's nothing to fret over. She looks at the big picture--most of his class is still only four years old, and cooperation takes awhile. Yes, it does!