When did I start rising

with the sun?

I have never been a morning person, not even in toddlerhood. My mother takes great delight in telling all and sundry about her constant battles to get me to sleep (she is an early to bed, early to rise advocate), and her endless mornings trying to get me to wake. I was one of those kids whose parents stumble past their bedroom on a wee hours wee run to find said child with torch under the covers still reading. At 2am.

My body clock was thus perfectly synchronised for my teenage years and twenties, even into my thirties. Late to bed, late to rise, late for work, sleep in the compactus and hope no-one went looking for files (have you seen those massive metal filing monsters? I could have lost weight in a very dramatic fashion, not that I needed to in those days). Ah yes, the party days. I was known at Uni for stumbling into my 9am lecture, complete in the black lycra and leather (photographic evidence here) and promptly falling asleep in the back row. And snoring.

Marriage, babies, well the broken sleep was not pleasant but the late night/very early morning feeds... pfft, no worries! Was not so impressed with having to wake at a decent time to feed the little buggers again, but followed the rule of when they sleep, you sleep and revelled in the daytime napping.

But my forties seem determined to change me into an early morning person. In the last six months I have awoken when the sun comes up (as early as 4.30am in Queensland) more often than not. Something is going seriously skewiff with my system! I am not a happy morning person, noooooo. I am a very grumpy, mumbling sort of early riser, the type that people avoid as they wander aimlessly around in pyjamas muttering curses under their unbrushed teeth bad breath. To make matters worse I do not drink coffee. Or tea. And it feels unseemly to imbibe coke at 5am, just not right, you know?

Something is very wrong in my world, and I think God is laughing at me! I know my mother definitely is... Payback is a bitch, right?