I'm not a morning person. I never have been. I mean, it takes something pretty special or important to drag me out of bed before 9...like work...like catching an airplane...like uncontrollable nausea. You get the idea.
From the time I was one to the time I was four, my mom was a single mom. She'd get up at the crack of dawn (or maybe before) to do her makeup and hair and all the things mommies do before they have to deal with waking children. I don't remember how often I did, but I remember waking up a lot of mornings and wandering out to the kitchen where she'd sit at the table with her mirror propped up on a towel, all her makeup and hair gel and combs and EVERYTHING laying on the table and she'd meticulously get ready for the day. I would be groggy and I'd stand beside her chair with my head in her lap, close my eyes, and listen to the radio playing songs like, "I'm On Top of the World Looking Down on Creation" and "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden." Sometimes I'd stand up and watch her working on her makeup and hair. Let me tell you, my mom can back-comb hair like a whiz! It was fascinating. I wanted that time with my mom enough that I would wake up without any external prompts and make my way to her, just to stand and lean into her lap while my siblings slept on. That was something special enough to get me up early.
Another thing (and the thought that prompted this blog) was Saturday morning cartoons. The three of us kids would wake up early on Saturdays and head to the living room to watch cartoons. Mom would sleep in (at least a bit) and we'd keep the tv low and enjoy all the good old cartoons like "Roadrunner" and "Bugs Bunny" and "Mr. Magoo."
Now my kids' childhoods are different than mine in a lot of ways. Our world is so much different. But Saturday mornings are very similar. They are finally old enough that they can get up and watch cartoons and I can sleep in a bit. Because of what I often find when I wander out to the living room now, I wonder what my mom used to find when she got up. Maybe my kids are just more active than we were as kids, but as they watch tv they keep their hands busy with other things a lot of the time, too.
A lot of times, it's nothing too earth-shaking. A whole mess of Pollies. (Emphasis on the word "mess.") Littlest Pet Shop. A collection of dolls. Drawings. Computer games.
But THIS Saturday was different. As I dozed off and on a little while, I remember hearing Megan say something to Alli about "trying to get a tan." No alarms went off over this. I mean, the kid has a good imagination and when they get to playing together they pretend a lot of things. I knew they wouldn't go outside, so no worries at all.
When I walked down the hall and into the kitchen, Megan spotted me and rushed into the kitchen to show off something she was quite proud of. She had taken a sheet of cardboard and wrapped it in aluminum foil. She told me she did it to get a tan. I told her it wouldn't work if she wasn't in the sun and she informed me that she was using a light. So apparently while I avoided "morning," my daughter sat with the living room light bouncing off her aluminum foil, attempting a tan.
Got to looooooooooooooove the way they think.
