Despite half a bottle of wine the previous night, day three of the morning shift proved a surprisingly routine affair.

So yesterday we had disorientation, we had tears, and we (I) had tiredness throughout the day. Inevitably the best solution for this proved to be a fine bottle of Merlot shared with my wife over the evening. A wine so fine, in fact, that there is now an empty bottle on the counter where once there was wine. The inevitable downside to this tale is that, today, we don’t have wine.

Still, let’s do that again some time …

Despite expectations to the contrary, I did not wake up this morning with a headache. In fact I’ve rarely felt better in the morning (and bear in mind that I do have exceedingly low expectations attached to my state of being for any period of the day that comes pre-caffeine).

If you’ll recall my blog post from yesterday, the big question for today was whether my alarm would actually wake me up or not. In the end I didn’t need the alarm: my toddler woke me up at about 6:15am asking for a toy (he tends to have toys in his cot rather than teddies: only ever one toy at a time, and only ever the specific toy that he wants – any toy whose entertainment value has expired gets thrown out of the cot, while the guessing game ensues over which toy he wants next).

So now I have a dilemma: I’m up and awake nice and early, but I really, really want the toddler to go back to sleep. If the toddler gets in the habit of waking up at the same time as me then I can kiss any chance of doing any morning writing goodbye. (Incidentally I’ve noticed during this week that I seem to be waking up earlier than normal anyway. Whether this is purely coincidental or a result of my subconscious shifting me into a different schedule I don’t know.)

I retreat to bed. A few moments later the toddler switches his musical mobile on. This is a good sign: I strongly suspect he does this when he wants to get himself back to sleep. I wait a bit. My clock is creeping up to 6:45am (the target alarm time for today). Toddler murmurs a bit. A few minutes later it’s sounding good. I test the waters (almost literally) by nipping to the bathroom. The toddler stirs when I return. Quickly, quietly, I open the door and make my escape.

Success: he’s still asleep!

As it happens my alarm goes off just as I get to the kitchen. Not being used to this early hour I’m marginally surprised to find that it’s still dark outside. It is also fucking cold inside. Which is less of a surprise. I use my thirty minutes or so of quiet time to consider the prospect of doing some morning writing from Monday next week while trying to work out what time to set my alarm to for the next few days. I also make my lunch and have some breakfast. Multitasking FTW!

Eventually I conclude that the original plan is still looking good:

  • Clear everything up the night before, get everything laid out and ready
  • Get up and make a pot of coffee
  • Sit down and write dammit

Even if I only get through one pomodoro (25 minutes) for the first few days I’ll be very happy, and getting up at around 6:30am will provide ample time for that. I still haven’t decided what to do over the weekends: keep to the same schedule or simply get up when I get up?

Regardless, tomorrow’s target time will be 6:30am.