by Maggie Downs posted in Life

I thought I'd always be a night owl. I imagined people were born either night people or morning people, and that's just the way it was.
When I was in college, I regularly pulled all-nighters, and it wasn't a big deal. I preferred it. I thrived on working through the silence and darkness, knowing that as the world slept, I was still awake and alive.
After college, I continued to live my life long into the wee hours. When other people yawned, I was just getting started. I had a membership to a 24-hour gym, and sometimes I?d work out at 3 a.m., having not gone to bed yet and not tired enough to sleep.
Then I had a baby.
But he wasn't just any baby. He was a child who woke up at 5:45 a.m., as consistently as if I had set him like a clock. He was -- GASP! -- a morning person. I tried blackout curtains, thinking that the morning desert sunshine was the problem. It wasn?t.
I tried messing with his bedtime. (Although I was reluctant to mess with it too much. He was going to bed easily and sleeping well, so why change anything") No matter what time he went down, he stubbornly woke up between 5:45 and 6 a.m.
It was clear the thing that had to change was me. I had responsibilities as a mother that I couldn?t meet as a night owl -- that is, a sleep-deprived zombie mom. A mombie. I had to start waking up early and not dragging through the day.

So I became an early riser, something I didn't even know could happen.
But it is. I'm here to tell you w...