Lyla used to wake up at 7:00, a time of sanity and convenience. Now she wakes up at 6:30, and the difference is enough to flip our morning upside-down and shake it till the change falls out of its pockets. At 6:30, I am trying to get out the door, and Julie is half-clothed in the upstairs bathroom finalizing her outfit and zipping the human mask over her alien head.
So now instead of leaving for school on time, I run upstairs in coat and shoes, yank off Lyla's pajamas and diaper, ignore her myriad objections, and stuff her into a hastily chosen outfit. A quick kiss and I deposit her at her mother's feet.
Charge down the stairs, grab my stuff, and out the door. Then I enter my car and immediately relax. There's the light traffic, the hum of the road, and the dependably asinine morning radio. It's brain-off time, ease-into-the-day time. It's a stark contrast from wrestling the diaper pail's stupid flip handle mechanism that always gets jammed, and from wrestling a baby into ill-matching clothes that will not advance her social agenda.
But I'm not complaining. I'll take Lyla's new 6:30 wake-up time if it means seeing her before I go. I'll take the stinkiness and fussiness. In addition to the inherent good of seeing one's daughter before work, the commute with its brain-off time feels better when the brain has recently been on.
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