#Mommymornings

Mornings are Mommy and Adele time. Sean stays up to give Adele her final bottle and diaper change around 9 p.m.; I go to bed between 8:30 and 9 p.m. Then I wake up (assuming she sleeps through the night which she has been doing the past week and a half!! Keeping fingers crossed she continues) when she wakes up, which is anywhere between 4 and 6 a.m. I say "good morning, Miss Adele," pull her out of her crib and give her her bottle in the rocking chair in her nursery. Usually she doesn't really "wake up" (open her eyes) until after she's had her bottle. When she's done, I sit her up to burp her. That's when she opens her eyes and looks around the room. Then I turn her toward me, so I'm holding her sitting upright in my lap, facing me. I smile at her and talk to her and she smiles back and "talks" back. We do this for a few minutes, and then I change her diaper and get her dressed for the day.

Sometimes we play more (I put her on the playmat) and sometimes we go downstairs so I can eat breakfast, depending on the time. Usually there's a combination of these tasks, in no particular order: me eating breakfast, taking my morning pills (multivitamin, etc.), letting Campbell out of the crate, washing Adele's bottles and packing them up for daycare, making coffee, drinking coffee and giving Campbell breakfast. All the while Adele is in her bouncy seat, "talking" to herself and swinging at the hanging toys. And I'm talking right back to her, and sometimes playing music from one of her many musical toys. I try to have music playing as much as I can. I turn her lamb swing music on when we're in the nursery: when she's playing on the playmat,during tummy time on the lamb mat and even when I'm just changing her diaper. 

Mommy and Adele mornings have become a favorite of mine. I'm shocked, even as I type out the words. Mornings have always, always been a stressful time for me. Even before the baby. Rushing around, eating breakfast, getting ready for the day. Add in a baby and a new full-time job. Add in feeding and changing an extra person. How do three people plus a dog get up, eat, get dressed, bathe and get out the door by 7:15 a.m. every single morning? 

By having a schedule-not schedule, that's how. A schedule: the thing I just mentioned I do in the morning. A not schedule: all of those things, never in the same order, ever.

Sometimes I get dressed before Adele wakes up. Or sometimes I get half-dressed before Adele wakes up. Sometimes I eat my breakfast before her morning bottle if she's still sleeping. Sometimes I eat after. Sometimes I drink my coffee before Sean comes down to take Campbell for a walk. Sometimes I drink my coffee while I'm getting dressed. 

And the winner: I shower at night, Sean showers in the morning.

I go to bed before 9 p.m. and wake up early. Sean goes to bed after 9 p.m. and sleeps later. We have a schedule and a not schedule.

All of a sudden I enjoy, somehow, someway, the morning chaos. Because it's Mommy and Adele time. It's chaotic. It's different every day. But every day we make it work. Every day I lift Adele out of her crib, her face scrunched and her hair a total mess (even though I brush it before bed). I'm the first face she sees in the morning; Sean's is the last she sees at night.

I get the morning routine, he gets bedtime.

By no means have we "figured it out." But we ARE making it work. And I have begun to love and cherish the crazy mornings. Where I'm exhausted by the time I get to work at 8 a.m. Where sometimes I drink coffee in my bra and underwear while putting on eyeliner. Where sometimes pee pee from Adele's diaper splashes on me after I'm already dressed for work. Where I'm washing bottles while talking to Adele while talking to Campbell while pressing the button on the musical toy while pulling a mug out of the cabinet while looking at my schedule and the weather for the day. I'm a mom.