Waking Life
In the early months, I was never the one doing the waking. My baby's cries woke me up at least five times a night, from around 9:00 PM until whichever hour I decided to stop trying to get back to sleep. He had no concept of sleeping through the night or that slumber was actually a desirable thing that Mommy wanted more of. Mommy (and sometimes Daddy) was just always there, ready with a bottle of formula or a fresh diaper.
I remember it all like a quasi-traumatic event. Every waking cry began with a small vocal stirring that registered on the baby monitor just slightly, like a tremor causing a scribble on the seismometer before an earthquake. This shook me halfway out of sleep and made my body tense up, waiting for those lights on the monitor to light up to their max level, which was the point at which I could hear my son's cries across the apartment anyway. Then I reluctantly clawed my way those last few inches into wakefulness, walked across the dark living room, and pulled him out of his crib to administer the comfort he only knew to ask for by wailing.
My son continued to be the main agent of wakefulness at home until he reached the age to start attending public school. The early school start time is brutal, and mornings became mixed. He developed a taste for staying up late to draw and play in his room. Still, from kindergarten to first grade, he often woke up shockingly early and jumped onto my bed to say good morning. My husband and I struggled to respond cheerfully, having a strong memory of those early nights of interrupted sleep and inadequate rest. We felt that after baby phase ended, we were owed the opportunity to sleep in past 6:00 AM.
Now in the summer before second grade, we require early wake-ups to drive the boy to day camp before his dad and I start work. He is still prone to staying up late the night before, but less likely to bounce back from it early in the morning. I'm nearly always the one to wake him up after I complete my ritual of snoozing my alarm three or four times in a row. I head straight for his room, pretending to be a morning person for his sake. "Good morning, campers!" I say cheerily after flipping on his overhead light. (He sleeps under a cloth play tent that fits over his twin mattress.)
His body is usually rotated 45 degrees from where it started, and oddly entwined in blankets. I look for an exposed foot or expanse of back that I can tickle or rub to start rousing him. I watch his face so I can catch the moment he recognizes my presence—that's when his mouth breaks into a smile even before his eyes open. He stretches, giggles, and sometimes pulls a goofy face to get a laugh of out me before he sits up. His priorities are on point, and his zest for life is infectious.
This won't last forever. Even the zestiest people surely can't stand waking up at dawn every weekday for school or work obligations.
Someday he will be a teenager who probably wants to sleep in as late as possible. Social pressures, growth spurts, and general moodiness—who wouldn't want to sleep through the hard parts of growing up? I don't know what will coax him out of bed to get up and face a world I can't even fathom right now. Certainly not rubbing his back or stroking his cheek, unless I want to embarrass him, which I might. Heck, maybe I'll keep the "Good morning, campers!" even after his play tent has been replaced by some proto-manly bedding like a forest green plaid comforter. It could be an evolution of my own mom's annoying tradition of waking me up by singing a bit of the Judy Garland song "Good Mornin'."
At some point he will stop needing my morning prodding and will rouse, dress, feed, and transport himself away from the house. He will depend on me for less and less. He will not grin when I poke his feet under the bed covers.
About a month ago, on a Saturday morning, my husband and I heard him get up early. He padded down the hall that leads straight to our bedroom, so we braced ourselves, expecting an immediate demand for breakfast or attention. But instead of beelining for us, he turned into the living room and retrieved some bit of crafting supply—scissors or Scotch tape—and returned quietly to his room to work on a project. We slept in until 8:30 AM. It was weird.