Mornings

How can three children being raised in the same family be so incredibly different? This morning, all three of my kids ended up in my bed. Sophie, of course, had been there all night. The minute the sun came up, Lucas came and got in our bed, followed later by Nicky. Yes, it was a crowded bed, to say the least.

Sophie is completely and totally NOT a morning person. She wakes up crabby every single morning. She rolls around in our bed, frowning, refusing to talk to anyone. She will let us kiss and hug on her. However, she will not smile or respond in any way. She will not grace us with a response more eloquent than a grunt or a grimace. Eventually, she will turn to one of us and utter the single word that she will say in the morning...."hungry." Not "I'm hungry." Not "Can I please have some breakfast?" Simply a terse, demanding "hungry."

Sophie's twin brother, on the other hand, wakes up cheerful every morning. Nicholas is also incredibly quiet, not saying much to anyone. However, he is a cuddler...a lover. He nuzzles and smiles and hugs and kisses. He snuggles up right next to my face, breathing his dragon breath on me. Quiet and unassuming as a mouse, he just melts into the bed and tugs at my heart strings. A perfectly pleasant child in the morning.

Lucas, my firstborn child, is a complete idiot in the morning. He wakes up happy to the point of near lunacy. He laughs, he wrestles, he tickles. He tells stupid jokes. He sings loud songs. He steals covers and giggles when we yell at him. He is perfectly obnoxious. I have no idea why he is so happy in the morning....what in the world does he have to be that ecstatic about? He has been that way since birth. As a toddler, we would walk into his room to find him standing in his crib giggling to himself as if he had just told himself a real knee-slapper. When I consider that this absurdly gleeful child is the fruit of Ruanita's womb, I marvel at the miracle of genetics.

Yes... we've learned to handle our three divergently different children in the mornings. Sophie, we plop in a chair in the living room, turn on the TV, and toss some cereal at her. We try not to speak to her until the beast disappears and our daughter returns...sometime mid-morning. Nicholas, we cuddle and kiss. He sits in our laps while we eat our breakfast. We love on him until he comes out of his amorous morning trance and no longer needs us. Lucas, we threaten with excruciating bodily harm.