SquawkRadio Comments

That’s so sweet, Liz!

(Liz and I have sons the same age).  My son actually still crawls into bed with us occasionally as well.  I find it so odd that his limbs are so long--his toes getting down near my toes.  Especially because he’s still so young, emotionally!

The weirdness of puberty, I guess.

Eloisa

Prior to kids, I was a kind-of night owl..not in your league, Liz! But now, I’m a total morning person. I do all my best work early, early, with the house quiet, and a clean-slate brain! I need that time in the morning to think, pray and do art..(not always in that order!) I think Lisa said at some point she gets up early too (4-5 am?), and I too, find it works, now..I feel like I’ve lost part of the day, if I get up too late..although now, coffee is a must!
I have a 12 yr. old boy, too, and I totally concur with the chatty/quiet point, he rolls the eyeballs, and shrugs one minute, and then snuggles up and wants hugs the next..

Liz, that really is nice!  I wish we were that organized in the mornings.  I get in bed with my daughter (who turned 10 yesterday!) for a few minutes most mornings and sometimes with my son.  We don’t always get up early enough, though.  And we always have the dogs wrestling in our bed in the morning. 

I’m definitely NOT a morning person.  I would do much better with a late start to the day.  My daughter is already a night person; she’s really crabby in the morning and until she was around 7, woke up most nights at least twice.  That was not fun for us.

My son is the same age as yours and Eloisa’s.  I can’t believe how tall my short, chubby little boy has become.  He used to pop out of bed, chattering away every morning.  Nw we have to drag him out of bed and coax speech out of him.

And my husband, bless him, lets the dogs out and starts the coffee every morning before I get up.

Good morning, Squawkers!

I’m most definitely a morning person--unless I’ve been sleep-deprived the previous day, then I’m just a grump and there’s no cure for it except sleep. LOL!

Our girls used to climb into bed with us on weekend mornings until they grew up and flew the coop.  Sometimes, our “boomarang” daughter will still come in and plunk down on the bed and chat with us if she’s home on the weekend. 

As for morning rituals..gee...If I sleep too late, my day always seems “off”.  Like I missed something, IYKWIM.

And every morning, I feed Her Majesty (the old lady dog) her breakfast of eggs scrambled with whatever I happen to have handy.  She really lets me know when it’s time to eat and harasses me until it’s served.

We tried a queen-sized bed but actually had to go back to a king-sized to make room for all the cats!

I’m a morning person.  I’m usually in bed by 11pm and up by 5:30am.  I don’t leave for work until 8:30 but I like to take my time, snuggle with the dogs, enjoy the sunrise, take a long walk and not be rushed. These days, however, rush is exactly what I do when I first wake up.  A new puppy has joined our family so every morning it’s a mad dash to the door to get Cassy outside before she squats.    The first week was touch and go but the past few days she’s been doing much better.  Smokey and I are so proud! 

Liz, what a wonderful morning routine. 

Our mornings are routine, but not like yours.  It’s all business, I’m up first to shower and get ready for the office, then my 12 year old son, then my husband, then my daughter.

My son, the youngest of five, likes to crawl into my bed at night when I’m sitting and reading.  I might ask him if he just wants to be close to me, and he says “No, your bed is just more comfortable than mine.” But then he falls asleep with his hand holding my arm.  My hubby will come and usher him back to his bed half asleep and we’ll do it again the next night.

Since we’re approaching teenager-hood, and puberty, I’m sure these times are numbered.

Liz, I hope you find a solution to your insomnia.  It’s different for everyone.

When my four (very grown) kids are home, they STILL come in to snuggle with us, which generally results in hilarity.

I have the house to myself since my husbands leaves for work at 6:30 and I don’t go in to work until 10:30. I drink tea (sometimes w/ lemon, sometimes w/milk just so it’s not TOO routine), check blogs including my own, read mail and newspapers online and then try to write a few paragraphs. It takes me a while to be fully alert. If I did the “write before you do anything” deal, Lord only knows how much worse my WIP could be!

My dog wakes me up at around 5am to take him out. Why at 5am? I have no clue, but it’s like clockwork, Then he crawls into my bed and sleeps.

I’m not a morning person, so I set my alarm 15 minutes early so that I can hit the snooze button and feel as if I slept a little longer.

I am not a morning person, and I do have a routine to get me through the morning. 

The alarm goes off, and I hit the snooze.  I only allow myself (usually) one snooze button hit.  When it goes off again, it’s time for the news, so I listen to the news and find out what happened in the world overnight.  When the sport report is over, I stumble out of bed and go downstairs to the computer - check all my boards and such.  Then I read for a few minutes, and by then I’m feeling awake enough to shower and dress and maybe eat something.

My day is definitely off if my routine isn’t followed.

Oh, the joys of twelve-year-olds. At times, he and I can talk with a fair amount of sophistication about politics and current events, and other times, I feel like I have a preschooler again. I’m glad to hear so many boys that age are still affectionate, though. Gives me hope for the next generation of men. 

Congrats on the new puppy, PJ! Having lost our oldest cat at the beginning of the year, we recently added a kitten to our family, and she’s hysterical. It’s like she has rubber feet, she bounces around so much, and she moves at the speed of light!

Prudence, my son will often do the nighttime thing, too, especially now that it’s cold. I like to turn down the bed early and turn on the electric blanket and read or do crosswords in bed in the evenings, and he’ll often come back with a book or game guide to join me. I love that.

And it’s really good to hear how many grown kids still like to invade.  I look forward to that.

And good to hear I’m not the only non-morning person out there. You’d think after twenty-plus years of trying to adjust to daytime hours, I’d have it worked out, but nooooooooo.  My body still wants to stay up late and sleep in. Sigh.

Liz, I have the exact same sleep cycle! I get so much more done when I get to indulge in it. When I try to follow a normal (for society) schedule, I spend too much time trying to wake up and then stay awake. I try to take advantage of it while I’m in school, but with a real job fast approaching, I know I’m going to miss it!

My family used to have a ritual similar to yours - my dad would wake me and my brother up, and we’d climb in bed with my mom while he took a shower. I’d always lay on my mom’s shoulder. Looking back, it was a great comfort every morning. But then in the 9th grade I started waking myself up earlier so we stopped. However, when my brother and I are home on school vacations, we’ll sometimes climb in bed with my parents before they go to sleep at night and just talk and laugh. That’s special as well.

pj, I’m so glad to hear you got a new puppy! What breed(s) is she?

Yeah, Liz, I hate to get up in the morning, too. I wish I was asleep right now.

I’m a night owl as well. I function WAY better when I’m able to indulge. I’ve been this way my whole life, my kids are the same way. Unfortunately, being a good Mom means that no matter what my body likes, I have to have them on a ‘normal’ schedule. This also means I don’t sleep well, at all.
And as for the snuggling, my kids like to do that before bed. Of course, Son is almost 5 and Daughter is almost 12, so I have a few more years of snuggling left. (I hope!!)

I used to be a morning person. If it was daylight out I couldn’t sleep. As I age and have changed jobs I’m a mid-morning person. Let me tell ya, I do NOT miss getting up at 3:30am 6 days a week. bleech.

My son slept with us easily until he was 6 or 7. He’ll be 16 soon *sob* and he still crawls in bed with us. I love it that he’s a teen ager but he still gives hugs and kisses and everytime he leaves us or goes to bed he says I love you mom, I love you dad. My dh and I worked really hard for love to come easily to him and it brings me to tears to see it working.

Xtina--there are pics of PJ’s new puppy over on Eloisa’s BB. She’s a cutie!

Liz--I have a guitar question for you.

Ohhh - these stories are all so lovely My family never did anything like that and if I’m honest I’m not sure how I’d cope (can you tell I don’t have children). My brother and his partner were over for dinner last night and my brother was explaining that he hasn’t read a book since school! As an avid reader (it’s the only thing that keeps me sane) I was horrified. My sister-in-law pointed out that if I had children I’d realise what time was...because I wouldn’t have any!

My morning routine? I love going to get the paper when no one else is around and I can breathe in the fresh, crisp air and just...be I love sunrise!

orannia

Elizabeth Bevarly said...You’d think after twenty-plus years of trying to adjust to daytime hours, I’d have it worked out, but nooooooooo.  My body still wants to stay up late and sleep in. Sigh.

Liz, that is not encouraging at all.  I have always been a night person, but have been struggling to keep ‘normal’ hours for the last three years since I got married.  And it is HARD.  Why did my husband have to be a morning person?!

We wish you were asleep too, Xtina

As long as I keep talking to you, Teresa, I’ll drift off soon ...

Now, girls. Don’t make me come back there and separate you two.

Lay it on me, Kim. I’ll ask the dh.

I love hearing everyone’s morning and family bed stories. (Said the tired author as she yawns again, her biological clock balking at the hour of day.) Keep ‘em coming!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...oh wait...I thought Xtina was talking about being on the New York Times again. 

Having roomed with me at conferences and bookfairs before, Liz knows I’m one of those disgustingly cheerful morning people who bounce out of bed with a whistle on my lips and a song in my heart.  You know--the kind that she and Xtina like to strangle.

Oh, but keep me up past 11:30 PM and I turn into a glassy-eyed serial killer.  Just ask my husband.

I’ve seen you up past 11:30, Teresa, and you were your usual cheerful self. But it did involve a very nice wineglass of cheer. The next morning was more your serial killer mode.

That is what comes from clean living. You build up no resistance to cheer.

I’m with Teresa; I’m pretty cheerful in the morning as long as I get the full eight hours of sleep.  The hard part for me is making myself go to bed early.  By the time the kids go to bed, I want to take full advantage of my adult time--and with a new stage of kid nightmares afoot (I’m thinking because a family friend just died)and the resulting 3 o’clock visits to my bedside (with me too tired to walk them back so I haul them up beside me...then don’t sleep because I’m aware of every sigh and breath), I’m not doing to well on the cheerful part.

Liz, how long does it take you to go to sleep and how many hours a night do you usually require?

The one thing I feel I need to do for the day to go right is meditate.  If I don’t, I lapse into shrewishness then go to bed loathing myself.

I think I have started to adjust to having to get up in the mornings, at least a little, but I still don’t like it.

I used to work 2nd shift (2 PM - 10:30 PM) and I loved it - except the job itself wasn’t so great.  Now I have a boyfriend who works that shift, and I really wish I was working those hours again too.  If only I could have my current job but work those hours - but that’s not going to happen.

My alarm clock/cd player is equipped with 2 alarms.....so when the 5:15am (I’m going to go walking tomorrow morning before work) alarm goes off, I will turn it off and turn on the 7:30am (ok, so I will walk during lunch) alarm.

Which one do you think makes me get out of bed more???

I’m in Texas and my project coworkers are West Coasties.......2 hrs behind.  So, even though I open my eyes at 7:30am, get up, walk around, turn on the tv in the living room and then turn on the music in my bedroom.  I log on to my work and deal with e-mail from my East Coast manager and put out any fires......hehe.  Then I will read online for a bit, or read in bed (one chapter, maybe 2) and then, check to see what I’m going to wear.......then make breakfast........then shower get ready.

I roll into the office between 9:45am - 10:30am....but I stay till 7-7:30pm.

Yes I’m single. 

As I recall, Xtina, we were ALL very cheery that night!

Yes, ma’am. That’s what happens when you get the Squawkers together. Cackling and good cheer. It’s too bad we don’t see each other more often.

Or maybe not.

Liz and Christina, thanks for the puppy congrats.  Cassy is a 4 month old black lab/german shepherd mix, the result of two college roommates who didn’t bother to have their dogs fixed then dumped a litter of 15 pups at the shelter.  Don’t get me started. 

She’s adorable, very sweet natured, full of puppy energy and Smokey has decided to let her stay.  She’s only about 18 pounds now but my Vet says she’ll probably top out at around 60 pounds.

Liz, I am an owl too. No matter how early I get up, I can’t go to sleep before midnight unless I am ill or medicated. I am chronically sleep-deprived.

I am a morning grump--no matter what time I get up. I wake up an eyelash at a time. I know that if I am going to have to interact with other human beings in the morning, I need two to three hours to conquer the grump. Normally I am up by 5:00 and on the road by 6:30. I can usually manage to be civil to the students in my 8:00 class. If one of the grands is with us for the week-end, I still get up at 5:00, so I can smile at him/her by 7:30. But I would be a lot happier if I could sleep to 10:00 or so--probably still not cheerful in the mornings but happier.

Teresa, I had a roommate who woke up cheerful and in love with the world. I threw my alarm clock at her the first time she wished me a blithe good morning and opened the blinds to let the sunshine in. After that, she was still cheerful, but silently so.

Janga, my college roommate scurried out of my way every morning for the first two weeks we shared a room.  She finally realized I was a complete morning grump and confessed to me that she thought I was mad at her everyday.  She also woke up cheerfully but had been scared to talk to me.  We shared a dorm room for two years, so it worked out okay in the end.

Too funny, Janga!  My husband is a morning grump too but since we’ve been married he’s learned how to talk before noon out of self-defense.

Actually, I’ve never paid attention to what Terri’s like in the morning at conferences. I’m too hungover.

Oh, hugs, J, on the loss of your friend. And for the kids, too. My son suffered from night terrors when he was very little if he got to sleep too late--you know, the ones where they seem to be awake, but really aren’t, and they’re completely inconsolable--and that was tough. And I’ll never forget once, when he was a toddler, he came running down the hall in the middle of the night and climbed into bed between me and the dh, and he wouldn’t tell us why. The next day, he described a truly horrific dream that woulda scared the @#$% outta me. Weird what the little ones dream about sometimes.

Re time getting to sleep...are you talking about with or without the Scotch?   ‘Cause if I don’t take something to help me sleep, be it a glass of wine (or my pal Johnnie Walker) or an OTC sleep aid, I’ll be up all night, without a wink of sleep. No lie. There is no sleep for me without some kind of chemical inducement. Even at that, I’m lucky to get five or six hours. And never in a row. I wake up at least twice a night.  Bleah.

Oh Liz. I think you and I are on the same type of schedule. Before I would go to bed by 8 or 9 and sleep thru the night. Since I’ve had my hysterectomy I’m lucky if I sleep 2 hours in a row. Although it is a given that if I’m on my 3rd hour of sleep my mom will call and say “I didn’t mean to wake you up. blah, blah, blah” I feel like an infant who can’t sleep thru the night.

I too like to stay up late and now that my 2 girls are grown I take advantage of it but I really hate all the holier than thou people out there that for some reason think everyone should get up at the crack of dawn and that makes them special some how lol. I swear people call early in the morning just for that reason and some have the nerve to say “well you should have been up.” I love late night tv, staying on the computer and then reading til all hours.

I am a certified night owl as just about everyone can tell by the hour I start posting.  I only require four hours of sleep.  I have to be up early the next morning to get the cherubs and DH off to school and work.

MY DH leads the wake up call.  He bellows old adages like : Rise and shine, Time to rock ‘n roll and the one that makes my right eye twitch “Time to make the donuts!” .  Let me tell you what you can do with your donuts, pal!

Conversely our bedtime snuggle time is at night after Banana finally gets her pjs on, has kissed the dog good night, brushed her teeth, dressed her Teddies for bed and chosen her Bible story of the night. 

Little Man has to approve the story ---long or short version, King James or New American...plus a ‘regular’ story. 

Baby Girl has to finish writing in her journal, reading or re-reading the one or two books she’s into (can you tell who she takes after!).

This all happens on our bed and I when I close my book and look over and see them sprawled on top of one another while one of the older kids reads.  It’s the best time of the day for me.

I love all the stories.  I have 7 godsons from the ages of 27 to 3.  I am now down to only 2 that will still crawl into bed with me: Jeffrey 12 and Angel Gabriel 3.  Jeffrey is my future Dr.Frankenstein/Ty Pennington/ Donald Trump mogul and he still likes being tucked into bed, read to and to chat about school and what’s on his mind. Even though Stephen-27 is married and a Dad still likes to lounge around in bed with me to talk.  I have found that all my godsons have always chosen those times to tell me things they haven’t and wouldn’t tell their parents or say things that would shock me but I have never reacted to them.

I absolutely love these stories!  I’m a morning person who was forced by family to be a night owl for ages and ages.  Now I’m happily asleep by 10 and awake at the stroke of 6.  I get up and make cups of milky English tea for me & Christopher Robin, and bring them back to bed where we watch the weather and chat about the day to come.  And yes, hold hands.  I love that part of the day!