Am I Crazy???

   Probably so.  The last two weeks Paul has had a mini vacation and we have enjoyed just hanging out with Dad.  It worked with our school break so it was perfect.  What was not perfect was that it allowed us all to fall back into our night owl habits.  We are ALL night owls over here.  Even baby Addie sleeps in until 8:30/9.  So we had a family meeting and everyone decided to stop fighting it and try to go with it for a few weeks and see what happens.  I was surprised because my boys generally enjoy getting up early to hang out but they all voted for later mornings.

 So here's what we decided- alarms are now set for (I can't believe I'm admitting this in public) 9am!  Yup, they will easily sleep past that if I let them.  We will basically bump our daily schedule up an hour.  Breakfast will be at...gulp...9:30 and school will start around 10:30.  It makes me cringe because it just doesn't seem "right".  However, we've been living this way the last week and a half and enjoying it! And we've been fighting against this for so long.  It hasn't made a big difference so far if we need to get up early, we just do and they seem to handle it fine.  I think I just need to get past my mommy guilt of not being "early to bed, early to rise".  Oh well, I haven't found myself any wealthier or wiser at 6am... just more tired!  I'm thinking I may still try to get up around 7 so I have a few hours to myself.  I've always wanted that but wasn't able to force myself out of bed at 5 or earlier.  And I swear the earlier I got up, the earlier they woke up!!

  Last night was the first night we did this on purpose.  Paul and I wanted to watch a show so we still got kiddos ready for bed and in jams around 8 but we sent those 5 and older to the boys room to listen to Adventures in Odyssey and play card games until 9:30 or so. They had a ball!  At 9:30 we shuffled Hannah up to bed, had the boys clean up the room and they were in bed to listen to the end of the story playing until 10.  I heard some chit chat going on until around 11 but I wasn't stressed or angry because I wasn't concerned with cranky kids all day the next day.  It worked pretty well and I was still able to get four out the door for some well child check-ups by 11:30.

   So, we'll be experimenting here for the next week or so.  If you call before 9 and get the machine, don't feel guilty that we are plugging away at school and ignoring you... we'll just be sleeping!