Becoming a morning person and a working mom

November and December were one big huge enormous time of transition.  Moving into Manhattan was a big change by itself and becoming a working mom was added right on top.  To be honest, it was a little overwhelming. 

The first day of my new job, walking out the door with my new apartment in complete disarray and not nearly looking like home... and leaving my munchkin with the freshly hired nanny... and jumping into rush hour commute in NYC.  It was surreal.  And scary.  I had so many conflicting emotions and thoughts going on it was enough to drive me batty.

It was so bizarre to be sitting at some strange office desk while my baby was going to storytime at the library or to the swings at the park.  I felt a little bit like crying when I received a text from the nanny with a picture of Jaime swinging with the biggest happiest grin on his face...  Of course I was happy that he was happy and that he has a great nanny.  But I immediately emailed a friend who is a working mom asking her if it gets easier.  Those first weeks were rough.  There was a lot of change to deal with.

{at baby gym class while i was at work}

Jaime is a morning person.  He was a morning bird before he was born.  He would be happy to get up at 6:00 but I try to keep his sleep schedule closer to 6:30am.  It was tough to adjust to only seeing my bug for such short amounts of time each day when I had been spending all day every day with him so I quickly realized that I would need to pull a little bit of camp counselor 101 out of my back pocket and 'fake it till you make' on being a morning person.  I am not a natural morning person.  But I this is the time I get so I want to make the most of it and for Jaime to know that I am happy to be spending those early morning moments with him.

Those first couple of months I tried to get up before Jaime and Dan to get my shower and a large portion of my getting ready routine done before they woke up.  Then I could soak up those morning minutes of family time.  Back in November and December he was still pretty chill and we would just hang out, read books, nom on a banana, listen to music on pandora, play peekaboo, sip on our beverage of choice, etc. (mornings aren't quite as calm these days but more on that to come)

Weekends became a bit more important as well.  Trying to make sure that the time we have is quality time.  Jaime still gets up at 6:30 regardless of whether it is Monday or Saturday and somehow this has become my favorite time of the day.  The kid is just so cheerful in the mornings it is hard to not cheerful along with him! 

So that is how this cranky old lady became a pseudo morning person.  And as December ended and we moved into January, we fell into a pattern.  I still wish I had more time with my little bug but we make sure to savor the moments we have.