Mornings with Amalia

I have quickly figured out that I am the only morning person in our family. My wonderful daughter takes after her Papa in many ways and not being a morning person is one of them. Saturday mornings consist of me sitting on the couch all by myself sipping my coffee and either watching the morning news or reading. This goes on for at least an hour until about 9:00 until Adrian gets up. Then he and I have about another half hour until we start hearing squeaks from Amalia. I know, this would be a dream come true for many moms of bounce-off-the-walls, get-up-at-the-crack-of-dawn kids, but I actually used to want everyone to get up when I did. After a few grumpy mornings and me finally figuring out that not everyone has to be a morning person, I settled for letting everyone sleep. And it is not as if Amalia doesn't get enough sleep. Along with an afternoon nap, she goes to bed at about 8:30 p.m.!
Weekday mornings are always interesting because I have to wake Amalia up at 8:00. "That's not early" you may say, and I well agree, but it is for non-morning people apparently because I give myself an entire half hour to get her up and ready and I am almost always late. I have learned to compromise, and I have learned to be very calm, tranquil and serene. So on to the point . . . I went in to wake Amalia up this morning and in my rehearsed semi-calm, serene way, I said, "Good morning." This is definitely a learned art because after a jog, a warm shower and a cup of caffeine-laced coffee, I am rearing to go and think everyone else should be too. The slits that contain eyes slowly opened and then closed right back up again. She then rolled over and clutched her blanket (luckily, I had spotted her pacie before she saw and hid it under the pillow because if she has that it is ten times harder to get her up). I began gently rubbing her back and said, "Amalia, do you want to brush your teeth?" (this tactic worked for a little while because she LOVES to brush her teeth, but I think she has become wise to it). she winced and rolled her shoulder as if to try to detach my hand off her back and then turned back over toward me and and tried to push me off the bed with her feet. Sensing the grumpiness coming on, I got up and starting getting out her clothes to give her a little more time. You have no idea how much self control this takes on my part. When I was little, my dad used to come in, jump on me and start tickling me ferociously and that is exactly what I want to do, but Amalia will start crying! After I did everything I could possibly think of to give her more time to wake up, I went over and sat on her bed again but didn't say anything. This time she opened her eyes and finally conceded, "Ok mommy, ok . . . be patient." This of course just cracked me up, but I was careful to chuckle quietly under my breath instead of a loud boisterous laugh and said, "Amalia, I love you." She retorted with, "No, I love YOU!" A sigh of relief! I knew then I was homefree and could proceed with the rest of the morning without WWII erupting.
She is only 2-1/2 now . . . I can only imagine the adventures I am going to have when she is a teenager.