What’s Earlier Than Eearly?

I have a new writing partner. He’s only two, and he actually doesn’t write at all, but since he insists on waking up at 4:45 in the damn morning, we’re sharing the predawn hours, just us too.

This is a mixed blessing, to say the least, insofar as he is really cute, but I’m not getting much done.

Usually, Daniel takes the kids in the morning so that I can write, but 4:45 is stupid early, so I’ve started just grabbing the little guy and bringing him upstairs with me so that Daniel and Celeste can get a little more sleep.

This morning, after I changed his diaper, he said “ducha” and marched toward the shower (ducha being Spanish for shower – he really speaks more Spanish than English at this point), because that’s what we normally do in the mornings, and I said, “no, no docha.” And as I’m carrying him up the stairs he says “oguurrr,” to which I responded “no, not time for yogurt.”

I sat him on the couch next to me. I opened my laptop, handed him a book and told him we were working.

Surprisingly, he actually seemed to get it, at least, for a little while. He sat and “read,” then tired of that and wondered around the living room playing with toys. After about half an hour he grew too curious to keep from trying to help me work and he started reaching for the keyboard, but thankfully by then Daniel and Celeste were up anyway, so they came to collect him and start the morning routine.

I’ve actually been thinking about getting up before 5, because another 15 minutes of writing would be awesome, but it seems too crazy. Then again, 5:30 seemed crazy at first, until I realized that I had to wrap it up by 6:30, and by the time the coffee kicked in, I only had about 45 minutes to write. 5:30 became 5:15, which soon became 5. Honestly, getting up this morning at 4:45 wasn’t so bad. (I can’t believe I just wrote that.)

So while I do hope the little man starts sleeping later, I’m actually thinking about making this a permanent schedule adjustment. Maybe I’ll just bite the bullet and set the alarm for 4 and get 2+ hours of writing in every morning. Who needs sleep when there’s writing to be done?