I have never been a morning person.
Sadly, I have always been surrounded by people that were. Growing up, my mother would walk into my room, flip on the light and start singing. Sometimes she would go as far as to crawl into bed warbling like a little canary and shove her poor helpless baby bird out of it's nice warm nest of tranquility.
In college, my house mate would hop out of bed at the first sign of daylight and go jogging. I KNOW! Somehow she convinced herself that jogging at 6 every morning was fun.
Masochist.
Now there's Aaron. Overtime, he's developed this internal alarm clock and actually wakes up on his own at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m.. 5:30 if he's "allowed" himself to sleep in. Every. Single. Morning. Weekends? 5 a.m. Holidays? 5 a.m. Vacation? 5 a.m. To make things worse, the man skips around the house, actually HAPPY, as I lay in bed in a desperate attempt to get just one final minute of glorious beauty sleep.
I think when we were first married, it was cute to him that we were so different in our morning routine. Blinded by love, he would chuckle as he watched his bride shuffle around, half dazed and grumbling about the injustice of being up so early. I tried to convince him numerous times to change our business hours (we work together) to a decent time, 1 o'clock sounded perfectly reasonable. No dice.
Slowly the newlywedness of it all wore off. He started "Operation Get Monica out of bed" with gentle nudges and other various acts of affection. They worked, until I started analyzing them and using his actions to my benefit.
"Ok, he just stroked my hair which probably means it's ten after. I have about 3 more minutes before he comes in here again with a few rubs on my back...then I'll really get up, I mean it. ZZzzz"
People, I had a system, a strategy.. I knew the system like the back of my hand. Until he changed the game on me.
Imagine, if you will, half-slumbering Monica nestled and warm in her little bed. Aaron is in his normal morning routine. He's already come to my bedside once with a good morning kiss. He walks to the bed and gently peels back the covers. In those few moments I think " This is new. Is he going to crawl into bed with me? What a nice husband he is!" I wiggle to my side to give him room.
SWAT
"Get up."
SWAT
"Get up." he repeats.
It takes a few seconds for my brain to compute exactly what he's doing. The man has pulled a fast one on me! The rain of swats continue as I try to untangle myself from the comforter. I'm slow and clumsy, so he's able to get in quite a few good shots.
"Ok! Ok! I'm up!" I slither down the side of the bed and plant my feet on the ground.
I hear his chuckle. The same damn chuckle that he used when I protested years ago, when he thought things were cute. If I had my glasses on I'm certain I would have seen a smirk.
