The Crack (or is that the creak?) of Dawn...

I'm an early riser. Didn't always used to be that way, but for about 10 years now I have easily woken up at or before 6 am. There is not much I enjoy more than heading downstairs and as the sun gently rises, reading the paper from cover to cover with a hot cup of coffee.

In reality, this hardly ever happens.

Why you may ask? Exhibit A shown here.

Oh how I love them, but oh how they torment me with their keen hearing. You see, our house is well built and not too creaky, but when I dare to tempt the fates by QUIETLY opening our door, then QUIETLY going to the bathroom before attempting to navigate the steps, I find myself holding my breath waiting for one of them to cry out.

If I am lucky, I can survive this portion of the competition, but then it's on to the stairs. The dreaded stairs.

Should I try to dash quickly down them? Or slowly descend, stopping on each step, hoping beyond hope that I've not been discovered?

As it turns out, none of my strategies seem to matter much. One of the boys inevitably wakes up and calls out (which of course wakes up his brother).  If it's Danny, he's up and running out of his room, excitedly telling me all about his latest dream (this morning it was that he lived in an aquarium and his best friend was scuba diving there with our fish.) If it's the little guy in his crib, he begins his loud and persistent demand for MOMMY! MAMA!  Benji will not take no for an answer. There is no winning.

So when I wake up early if I have a book I try to read. If not, I daydream about the newspaper just waiting for me one flight down. Calling my name I swear. I will admit that sometimes I feel like a prisoner in my own home.

Then when my impulses get the best of me, although I know I shouldn't, I try once more to sneak downstairs. And every once in a great while I succeed. Then there are the other 99% of the times.

There's always tomorrow ;-) -Monica