Rebecca Eckler

I had the most glorious Saturday and Sunday morning recently. My daughter’s father had taken her for a ski weekend. Of course, I miss her when she’s gone, but what I discovered? I really, really miss being able to SLEEP IN. 

I had forgotten how amazing it is to sleep in, and how much I had missed it -- until I had the chance to sleep in. 

I had somehow managed to train my daughter, when she was a baby and toddler, to sleep in. (I know. I’m like the friend you hate because they have a fast metabolism. Please don’t hate me.) Unlike most mothers I know, whose toddlers were getting up at the ungodly hour of 6am, and sometimes even earlier, my toddler and I would sleep in until 9am most days. 

Was I lucky? Maybe. But I was smart, too. I got black out blinds and a white noise machine, (my tip to you, new mothers!) and it worked! She was a sleeper-inner. But then my daughter started school full days. Every morning, I had to set the alarm to 7:11am which was hard on me (I need at least eight hours of sleep, not for beauty, but so I’m not a royal bitch). But, even still, that was only five-days-a-week, and I still had the chance to sleep in with her on weekends.

But, then, of course, as your children get older, programs are planned. They need to be planned so you have something to kill your day with. And, for some reason, children’s programs always seem to be in the mornings. 

So, not only was I getting up at 7:11am every weekday, but I had to now get up Saturday mornings for dance classes, or music lessons. So, that was six-days-a-week. But I still had Sundays! I still had Sundays to sleep in.

But this is the year that really started to kill me. My daughter now has to get up SEVEN days a week, before 8am, because now along with her early morning Saturday program, I had signed her up for Jewish religious school on Sunday morning. (In case you were wondering, she’s not over-programmed. She LOVES going to music and Hebrew school.)

In any case, I grew accustomed to it. I didn’t like it, but it became routine. Every single morning of every day of the week, at exactly 7:11am I woke up, hitting the alarm as if it were a scary twelve-legged creature. (I don’t do bugs very well.)

And then she went away for the weekend. I didn’t set the alarm. The first morning, I, of course, woke up at 7:11am even without the alarm, wondering what people do at 7:11am if they don’t have a child. But I managed to fall back asleep. When I woke up at 10:30am I actually had a smile on my face.

Sleeping in was as glorious as an hour-long massage! It was better than cookie dough ice cream!

I don’t miss much anymore about my pre-mother days. I miss barely anything. Except I really, really miss sleeping in.

What is it you miss the most?