When you combine a Night Owl with an Early Bird, you get An Alexis--a creature who throws her head back and laughs in the face of any "expert" who says someone her age should get 10-12 hours of sleep per night. Recently, Alexis has been working on really testing the depths of her Early Bird skills, and it's probably my fault.
I think it was two months ago when a perky little person popped her face up against mine and shoved my eyelids open with her chubby little fingers. "Momma, I'm not sleepy," she said.
My alarm hadn't gone off yet, which meant it was Too Damn Early O'Clock. I growled, "Go find your father," and shoved my head under my pillow.
Alexis did find her dad that morning and he did what anyone with any sense would do--he delayed having to be a parent by turning on the Disney Channel and shoving a bowl of cereal in the kid's face. He leaves WAY before my alarm even goes off, so really, the best thing for Little Miss Not Sleepy to do was to curl up on the couch and let Mickey keep her company.
She decided to make it a habit.
Several times each week, Alexis somehow hears Mr. Husband rumbling around in the kitchen between 4:30 and 5:00 in the morning. She skips down the stairs and parks her butt on the couch so that she can happily spend a couple of hours hanging with Mickey and her Shredded Wheat.
A normal human being would rather sleep than watch TV at 5:00 in the morning. Obviously, she isn't normal.
Every time I wake up only to find my kid had disappeared to the family room, I think SURELY today will be the day that she lives to regret getting up so early. Every time I am wrong. She remains fully functional all through the day, and is usually still obnoxiously happy when her bed time rolls around at 9:00. It's disgusting, really. And exhausting. As in, I need a nap just thinking about it.
Today, though. TODAY. Today was the day that Alexis finally found her wall. She was wide awake at 4:00am. She was ready to get dressed and head to school because in her head, the sooner she got to school, the sooner it would be time to go to the Imagination Movers show. I managed to delay her for an hour, but then she went and found a sucker who would turn on a TV for her.
Fast forward SEVENTEEN hours. SEVENTEEN hours later, the child stood dancing and singing and generally having a crazy good time as Rich, Scott, Dave, and Smitty rocked out. One second she was happy. The next second it looked like an Alexis-shaped plane crash landed into the theater. She was still generally pleasant, but looking into her eyes was like standing in a black tunnel and seeing the telltale light as a train approached.
The train punched me in the face during the drive home after the show. I had told the kid it was OK if she fell asleep in the car. She responded by telling me it would be OK if I just screwed myself.
Perhaps not literally, but it's what she meant.
There was some nonsense about how she was thirsty and I must have taken her water out of the car and OMG how dare I leave her water at the table at dinner and WHERE IS SOME WATER, WOMAN. SERVE ME. OR DIE.
Apparently she couldn't sleep? Breathe? Exist? Something . . . unless she got a drink of water Right. That. Second. Last time I checked, I don't look like a drinking fountain, so she was just plain out of luck until we got home.
It was a very pleasant drive home. Or something.
But at least the show was really good.
