I'm a morning disaster

To say I'm not a morning person is a gross understatement. As a teenager and university student, I happily slept entire mornings away - when I wasn't waitressing the breakfast shift, that is. Hubby is the ultimate morning person. As a teenager, he wilfully woke up around 5 am. On weekends.

As luck would have it, my kids got their sleep cycles from their dad. It's nice in the evening when they hit the sack by 7, especially in winter. But it means they're up somewhere around 5 am the next day. It drives me loony.

Many weekends, hubby lets me sleep in at least a little, until 6:30 or even, like yesterday, 7:15. I know. I'm living the good life.

The thing is, he does it for the survival of our whole family. Before my first cup of coffee (or even after, if I was up before 6 or so), I'm a real monster. I can't help it. There's this part of my brain that knows I'm being some weird maniac - but it's like I'm watching the rest of me be that maniac and I can't do anything to stop her. Hubby and the kids have all suffered the wrath of coffee-less mommy.

This morning, we both slept in until 6:30ish while the kids watched Toy Story in our room. When the film ended, I thought I'd do breakfast with the kids while hubby slept in. So I get started - boiled some water for my bodum. Toasted a raisin bread for the two-year-old. Then a bagel for the three-year-old. Then fed the dog. Then the cat. Poured water in my bodum. Went to toast a second slice of raisin for my two-year-old. And the toaster wouldn't stay down.

(Now, I need to break here and say this toaster was exactly 36 hours old at this point. Because you see earlier this week, I used the flat top stove as extra counter space for the toaster, while I also boiled water using my stove-top kettle. I fried the toaster electrical cord, nearly stating a kitchen fire. As you may have guessed, this was all before 6am, and before my first cup of coffee. Yet another day I should have stayed in bed).

I looked through the Canadian Tire bag for the receipt - and found a big hole in the bag, and only one of the Canadian Tire bills I'd received for my purchase remaining in the bag. I'm assuming the receipt ended up somewhere between the mall door and my car, and is now buried deep somewhere in a snowbank. Hubby tried to MacGyver the new cord onto the old toaster, but gave up. We're now the proud owners of our third toaster in about 5 days. On the bright side, the new toaster is black, so it matches with all our other kitchen appliances.

And of course, while this toaster ordeal was happening, I lost it. The kids were whining (and eventually, screaming) for more breakfast. I was really, really peeved that 1) the toaster was broken; and 2) I didn't have the receipt. I broke many challenges this morning, let's just put it that way. And the Snowsuit Fund made it rich, too.

So on to the next challenge:

11. Be a little more human in the morning.

Yikes. How much do you want to bet this will be my toughest yet?!?!