I am not a morning person, I never have been. I really do not like getting up early in the morning. Why is everyone so chipper in the morning? Me, not so much. I like to get up, have a cup of juice, make some coffee and log on to the computer . . . and not be bothered.

No little ones jumping up and down for attention, no husband firing off six questions one right after the other (oh, this is hilarious . . . when we were on vacation I woke up, went out to the deck with a cup of juice and hubbie fired off like four questions and I told him 'dude I just woke up' and walked away--my MIL then said to hubbie 'I can't believe how disrespectful your wife is to you, I have never spoken to your father like that in 50 years' -- I was laughing my head off on that one) Anyway, that still makes me giggle for some reason.

I think perhaps I am a grouch in the morning because of the manner in which my father used to wake me up in the morning (just to solidify, my brothers are just as grouchy as me in the morning and one of my brothers will get up an hour earlier before his family to not subject them to his grouchiness). My father would simply walk into my bedroom, turn the light on and grab my covers and rip them off of me. HELLO MORNING! If you attempted to get up and turn the light off and get back in bed he would stand there holding your covers hostage. I can laugh about it now, but let me tell you as a teenager it really sucked!

I would never wake my children up in that manner . . . never in a million years. Each morning, my alarm clock beeps and I slowly sneak out of bed so as not ti wake my little one (yes, I co-sleep) and tiptoe down to my son's room and slip into bed with him for a morning snuggle. After he is awake I turn his fish tank light on and tiptoe down to my daughter's room and slip into her bed for a morning snuggle.

This is how I wake my children in the morning before they get up for school. I don't want them to be a big grouch like their mother!