April 15th, 2003 - Tuesday

Early in the mornin'...

Mar did this writing prompt and though I hate to copy her, I was very intrigued by this one. The prompt is, "What is the first hour of your day like?"

I was moved to write about this one because the first hour of my day is wonderful and one of my favorites. Oh, the rest of the day can be great too. Around 2 we may get to go for a walk if the weather permits and that's fun. The evening is bath time. Sometimes it's a bath that I give Hayley in her tub while I sit on the floor and get drenched as she splashes and other times it's a bath that we both get to take together which is an equally fun part of the day.

The first hour, though, is among the best.

We wake up together at some point in the mid-morning. The benefit to having a baby who refuses to sleep before 10:30 or 11:00 pm is that she's not an early riser either. Not being a morning person myself, I appreciate the chance to sleep until 9 most mornings. Sometimes I even get up before she does and she'll sleep sprawled in the middle of the bed for another half hour without me while I have my coffee.

On a more consistent level though, we both wake up together. We play for a bit, with her sitting in the middle of the bed, flapping the sheets, playing with her stuffed cow, laughing at me, and of course she has to coo at her crush, CNN's Bill Hemmer. (I swear, the girl is in love!)

After about fifteen minutes of playing, she tires of being in bed. That's when we'll get up and the first order of the day is a changed diaper. I leave her in her pajamas for the first change because she's just so cute in them. I usually quickly throw a t-shirt on and leave my pajama bottoms on too. Then I bring her to the bathroom with me and stick her in the bouncy seat while I do what I have to do. I usually put my contacts in right away if she's in the mood to sit for awhile longer, playing with her rubber duck from the bathtub. I prefer to put my contacts on as soon as possible because she has a habit of grabbing my glasses and getting annoying finger prints all over them.

After bathroom time is done, we go to the kitchen. I plug in the kettle for my coffee and deposit Hayley in her high chair. After my coffee's ready, I prepare her a bowl of whatever solid she's on for that day - today was applesauce, tomorrow we start on carrots!

I bring my coffee to the dining room table and settle myself in with the bowl and a spoon and we can easily use up 20 minutes or so with the feeding. If I fed her completely on my own it would likely go much faster but half the fun of solids is letting her take the spoon herself to put the food in her own mouth. I sip my coffee while she slurps and chews until she decides that she doesn't want any more.

Once she's done, I leave her in the high chair while I prepare myself another coffee and some breakfast. She's usually quite content as long as I leave the bowl and spoon for her to play with.

When my breakfast is ready, I bring her to the living room and put her in the exersaucer. As soon as she's in, she turns to the television and actually bounces up and down with excitement because she knows that means it's time for "Baby Mozart". That video is my saving grace. It's what allows me the time to eat my breakfast in peace. She watches and coos and talks while I finish my breakfast and check my email and favorite websites. As I do, I interact with her, telling her what things on the screen are ("That's a dog!" "Cat!").

By the time it's over, our first hour of the day is already over. It actually passes so quickly I can't even believe it. Once she finishes watching the video it's usually been about an hour and a half or two hours since she's been up and she's ready for some of her favorite milk (that would be me) and a nap.

It's the one time of the day where she's predictably happy. If she's unhappy in any way, there's usually something wrong. She has mood swings throughout the day but that first bit of the morning is sunshine and roses and it's when we're both happy to be looking forward to what the rest of the day may bring.

I'm never going to be a morning person in the sense that I'll never leap out of bed ecstatically to greet the sunrise. I'd still love to be able to pull the covers over my head and sleep until noon some weekends. She makes me as close to a morning person as I'll ever be though, because I really do look forward to our early hour together.

Three pictures to tide you over: