"Six o'clock already I was just in the middle of a dream.."

We are not early morning, meet the sunrise with song and big ole toothy, hayseed smile type of people.  Maybe it's because we don't drink coffee.  Heaven knows that the people in Folgers commercials appear a little too chipper.  I love the smell of coffee.  That "fresh, mountain grown aroma" is quite wonderful.  If only the stuff didn't taste like boiled dirt and make both Bart and me violently ill at our stomachs.  Personally I've always thought that the "best part of waking up" was you know, waking up.  Some people don't.

Anyway, we're not morning people at all.  Somehow over the past two years, we've managed to influence Lucy, and she would more often than not stay in bed a little later.  We're on our way to doing the same with Dory.  I count it a blessing when she can make it until seven on the weekends and six on weekdays.

This morning all three of the Gilbreath girls tried to sleep until six.  That wasn't easy to do when Bart had to get up at twenty 'till five so that he could be in Grove, OK by eight.  When Bart woke up, Dory woke up.  That meant she'd need to potty.  I made him take her outside.  She didn't really want to get out of bed and tried to snuggle up next to me, but I told Bart to pick her up and make her go.  He did, she did, then she got to get back in bed with me.  She snuggled up next to my head, and Lucy jumped up from her blanket on the floor she sometimes sleeps on when she thinks it's just too crowded in bed and snuggled up, along my legs.

If only Bart could have already had all of his clothes and stuff in the bathroom and not needed to go in and out the whole time he got ready.  I try to take all my stuff upstairs the night before so I don't disturb Bart when he's sleeping, not that I could disturb him much anyway.  Anyway, he was pretty distracting and didn't leave until right before six o'clock.  I get up around six o'clock every weekday.

By the time Bart left, Dory was restless and wanted to eat.  I refuse to feed her before six in the morning, because she'll always want to eat that early.  I got up, turned off my alarm, kissed both the girl, put on some sweat pants, picked Dory up out of bed (she's still too small to jump up, and rarely ever jumps down on her own) and went to the kitchen.  I called to Lucy to stumble out of bed to go potty.  She slowly did, yawning and stretching along the way.  I swayed in circles, trying to wake up as the girls practiced their synchronized pooping.

Then I fed them their breakfast:  one cup of Blue Buffalo Large Breed Puppy for Dory, one and a half cups of Blue Buffalo Fish and Sweet Potato Recipe for Lucy.  This is important because they're both eating so much healthier these days, and you can tell.  When they finished eating, (I'm thrilled to say that Dory politely watched while Lucy finished her food without trying to steal it) I pulled two apple yogurt treats out of the  pantry, dipped each in a little peanut butter, and sent the girls to the back yard for the day.  I thought surely with the girls already taken care of and outside so early, getting ready would be no problem.

And it was not problem, until I started to fix my hair.  My flat-iron was blinking like it does when it's still heating up, even though I turned it on as soon as I got out of the shower.  It was cold.   Crap!  Today officially became Pony-Tail Monday at that point.

"These are the days when you wish your bed was already made."  Yeah, right.  Like I really make my bed in the mornings...  I did begin to think that it would be a Manic Monday, though.  I looked at the clock and realized I left the house a little early.  When I drove by Rick's Bakery I noticed they didn't look too busy.  So I stopped in and bought two sausage rolls.  So, it wasn't a Manic Monday after all, and I refuse to use alliteration to describe it.  It's Not Too Shabby Monday for me.