Sometimes I Wake Up Grumpy (sometimes I let her sleep)

Greetings, Dear Reader. How art thou?
I hope you are off on the right foot for this new week.
It has been a nice Monday morning here at the homestead.
We had a bit of a slow start this morning. I have gotten out
of my routine and it has kind of messed me up.
I don't know why it is suddenly
so hard for me to roll out of bed on time in the
mornings lately. I have just been so tired! I'm thinking
change in weather and sinuses---that's what I am going to
blame anyway. And now, after the time change,
I find myself dealing with daylight first thing this morning.
I mean, daylight.
It was all there. I forgot that was going to happen.
And then Lloyd Dobbler was trying to talk to me
in the bathroom this morning. What is up with that?
After 16 years of marriage, you would think that he
would know he can't talk to me first thing in the morning.
There's no call for it. If you want to get on
the fighting side of me,
or at least the side that is most likely
to hit you over the head with something,
come up to me about 30 seconds after my feet
hit the ground in the morning and just start talking.
Even thinking about someone doing that annoys me.
Unless some thing or some body is on fire,
there's just no excuse for it.
There's got to be some sort of buffer of time
before you have to interact with people in the morning.
I guess I'm just not a morning person.
And wouldn't you know that I have three children
who wake up with smiles on their sleepy little faces,
ready to finish the sentence they fell asleep in the middle of
the night before. So far Baby J seems to be a grump
in the morning like me. That's not a trait of mine
that I was hoping to find in my offspring.
I was looking more for a left handed preference.
I keep telling Baby J that he's my last hope for a left-handed
child and that if he will just simply be left-handed
then he will be my favorite.
You would think that's a offer that is hard to refuse.
And yet I get no commitment from him.
He uses both hands to smash crackers into his cranium.
He can use either hand to pick up a rattle
and shake it like a Polaroid.
So I don't know how that's going to turn out.
But he has the opportunity
to claim the title of Mama's Favorite.

And I'm not even joking.
I take my plight as a left-handed person
very seriously.

This has been such a cozy morning.
It's brisk outside and we are all snug inside.
We have been doing school and I have gotten almost
all of my so-called "lesson plans" done through the end
of this year (this calendar year, not this school year).

I made a batch of these cookies this morning
and they are wonderful. I think I will make
them for the big cookie exchange
if I have my act together enough to participate
in that this year. The kids have been listening to their
friend, Elisabeth Elliott on cassette tape this morning.
Three cheers for Mrs. Marathon for finding me that
boom box with a working cassette tape player in it!
It's so lovely to have everyone busy about their morning stuff
and have our friend, Elisabeth Elliott speaking to us
in the background. We have been playing the tapes
of her reading Christmas stories.
It was a 3 tape set and tape #2 is missing.
I hope we find it.
If you have never heard these, you are missing out.
I think the kids like best when she reads
Beatrix Potter's The Tailor of Gloucester.
At lunch we listened to the one where she reads
Pearl S. Buck's Christmas Day In The Morning.
That story just brings tears to my eyes. It's so sweet.
And when it got to this one part, where the dad discovers
his Christmas gift, Big E was just grinning from ear to ear
as he listened to that. Precious story.
You need to read that if you aren't familiar with it.
Here's a version of it if you would like to read it for yourself,
but it's so much better if your friend Elisabeth Elliott
reads it to you....while your kids do their handwriting
and the baby plays with blocks
and you make peanut butter cookies
...that makes it really enjoyable.
A lovely, peaceful, cozy, ordinary morning.
My favorite kind.

p.s. I just clicked on that link I gave you
for the Pearl S. Buck story and
that might not have been the best link.
I never fully investigate these links that
I give you. I always hope I'm not
rick-rolling you. Anyway, there are
a lot of typos in that. Like when the
boy hugs his dad, what he really
says is "I want to be good"
not "I want to be God."
Sigh.