Lazy Mornings

image by fault magazine.

We've had, it appears, a little shift of routine to our weekend mornings. It started a couple of weekends ago. The first time David and I put it down to 'a one-off', the second time we said it was probably a 'phase', but this weekend we both dared to admit it could actually be the beginnings of something good. Something really good. An extra half an hour in bed.

The children tend to wake up around 6 a.m. Full of beans they bounce straight into our room and demand to be taken down for breakfast. During the week it's what we do as the day has to start then, but at the weekend it can be rather harsh, particularly in the winter when it is freezing cold and still feels like the middle of the night. But a few weekends back, when they jumped on the bed at 6 a.m. we suggested that they went and played together in Lily's bedroom. They did and they've now made it their weekend routine. Obviously one us still has to go into Arthur's room and get him out of his cot and change him into a fresh nappy, but then he's off to climb into bed with Lily where she will read books to him for a while. Then they will get out of bed and play in one of their bedrooms and then the others. 

Technically we don't get a proper lie-in. Lily is a loud reader and they have yet to learn the art of playing 'quietly'. So we're awake, but we can dose and enjoy a coffee in bed and maybe catch up on yesterday's newspaper that we took to bed to read, but fell asleep within five minutes of being in close contact with a feather & down pillow. Sometimes we just talk. We talk about all the stuff that builds up during the week and is mentally filed under 'things to discuss on the rare occasions that we are in the same room without the kids and not working'. It could be as dull as which internet provider we're going to switch to as the current one is screwing us over, or it's a chance to discuss work issues that we couldn't face going over the evening before.

But the thing is we can talk in a calm and peaceful environment and allow our exhausted selves to come to before starting another busy day. It's still a long way away from the kids taking themselves down and getting their own breakfasts (and maybe bringing us up a cup of coffee), but I am for the time being extremely grateful for small mercies. For the past six years, we've been dreaming of when mornings might be 'kinder on us', and it looks like they might now be here.