It’s 7 a.m. Saturday morning and the alarm is going off.

“Mama!” Hug mama! Huggaaa mamaaa! Come get me mama, come get meeeeee!”

Alas, there is no snooze button. I roll over and nudge my husband, who is pretending to still be asleep. I nudge (i.e., push) him a second time. And so begins our weekly weekend battle for the bed… as in, “who gets to stay in it for another blessed half hour or maybe even 45 minutes?”

I fire the first shot. “I got up last Saturday.”

“I put her to bed AND gave her a bath last night” he mumbles, pulling the pillow over his head.

“I got up with her at 3 a.m. to go potty AND I’m letting you golf tomorrow.”

There’s a pause.

“OK, I’m getting up, just give me two minutes.”

Golf. It’s a very powerful motivator where my husband is concerned. Meanwhile, the alarm continues, only louder and more insistent.

“Mama! Mama, Mamaaaa!!! I WANT TO GET OUT!!!!”

Note that she does not call for daddy. And daddy is still lying there, still with the pillow over his head, still trying to get another couple minutes of shut-eye through all the noise, which virtually guarantees that neither one of us is going to get any more sleep. This really drives me crazy, so that I fling the covers off the bed, and stomp down the hall to my daughter’s room, hoping that my martyrdom routine will at least score me some points for next week.

Emi is naked when I arrive, having peeled off her pajamas and Pull-Up while her parents were jockeying for sleep-in time.

“Hi Momma!” she pops up, all energy, all ready-to-get-the-day-started. “I need to get dressed!” She’s definitely a morning person. By now, my husband has shown up, clearly concerned that by claiming sleep privileges, he will be sacrificing his golf privileges. “I got her… to go back to bed.”

I give her a kiss, head back down the hall, shut the bedroom door, and dive under the covers. Five minutes later, I feel a cold wet nose nudging (i.e., pushing) my cheek. Our dog is also a morning dog. I get up, go to the kitchen, feed the dog, and as I pass the open door to my daughter’s room, I spot my husband curled up in a pile of animal throw pillows, his arm wrapped around Emi’s giant IKEA elephant, totally asleep. He looks like he’s 5-years old. I walk into the room and snuggle up next to him on the pillows and soon enough Emi dives on top of us. “Group HUG!!!!” she screams.

It’s 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and we are all awake and group hugging. For the moment, I’ve decided that it’s nice to be a morning person, too.

By Shannon Matus-Takaoka

Labels: baby, dog, golf, group hug, IKEA, mornings, sleep

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