Rise and Shine

My sister has been going to some parenting classes taught by a women in Boise ID that has 10 kids all about 18 months apart. She is a grandma now, and this woman has it together. She made some CD's with her lectures on them and my sister sent me a couple. The first one I listened to is about establishing order in the home. This has always been a priority to me but I haven't felt successful at it. So guess how order in the home happens? She suggests that it begins with getting myself in order first. Makes sence. But....then she continues to say that this means that I must wake before my children do and get ready for the day and then she quotes D&C 88:124 Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated. For some reason it hit me more than it ever has, that I really need to do this. I've heard this over and over and have continued to ignore it. I can't anymore. She is so right and I know that I would do so much better with my stewardships if I did it. So last night I got my bones in bed at 8:30. I will keep you "posted" periodically of my progress. I need this because my past attempts at order fail when I am not fulled rested and ready to face the day. My kids have always woken up around 7:00 (they go to bed at 7:00pm) and I usually roll out of bed around 7:30. This doesn't usually make for a pleasant morning. My baby is always poopy and needs to eat ASAP, my next youngest always comes into my bedroom and says, "I hungy mooooooooooooom", and my boys are usually very quiet, and if you're a mom you know what that means. The funny thing is, I get up at 4:45 almost every morning to make my husband's lunch. You may be wondering why in the world I would do this, so I will explain. Two reasons. #1: If I make his lunch in the morning its forces me to get out of bed and maybe stay up after he leaves. The only problem is I've stayed up to late the night before and usually just crawl back into bed and wait for, "I hungy moooooooom", to wake me up. #2: I've always made his lunch from day one, Its my way of showing my appreciation to him and he's reciprocated it in many different ways.

Sometimes I have been successful and I do get up. I get a ton of things done. I love it. I've always been a morning person. I love to exercise in the morning and do my personal study in the morning. Its invigorating to get ahead of the day and feel better prepared to face the challenges of motherhood and running a home. The problem lies in the hour in which I get to bed at night. That's why I've continued to fail at my vain attempts. Jeff doesn't get home until 6:00 and it just doesn't give us a lot of time to do much before its time to go to sleep. We've tried over and over to set a time and get to bed so we can have a good 8 hours,but we just don't stick to it because we don't want to waste the time we have without parental responsibilities. You know what I'm talking about! Time to read, to take a bath, blog, watch American Idol,time to talk, etc.......So that's what I am working on. Hopefully you've got this down. I'm up for any suggestions.