The Early Bird Catches the Worm

It was a bit of an early morning this morning, not dramatically different from my usual but Chad needed to be out the door by 6:25 am this morning. So instead of getting up at 5:50am to go to the gym, I got up at 5:20am and ran outside. Not a great outdoor morning, let me tell ya. Pitch black, cold and raining when I left and pitch black, cold and raining when I returned. It makes it hard to wake up, although there is something cool about running alone on the streets while everyone else is sleeping. Anyway, the nice thing about waking up that early is that I had more than an hour at home to myself before the boys woke up. I showered and dressed in uninterrupted peace and then read and munched on fruit until the boys woke up around 7:30am. It was a nice way to start the morning. After everyone got ready, we spent the rest of the morning kicking it old school style at the local mall with my friend Ellen and her girls. I have to say that the mall seemed pretty darn quiet for prime shopping hours two weeks before Christmas. I know that in theory the way out of a recession is to spend, but I don't think anybody's doing much of that these days.

The boys have been so tired lately! We just had so much going on lately with the holidays and such that their routine has been really thrown off. Brandon especially has been off his game - crankier and more aggressive than usual. I'm looking forward to getting back on schedule the next few weeks and having the boys back to their normal cheerful and energetic selves. Brandon literally threw a 45-minute tantrum yesterday because I wouldn't give him a fruit leather before lunch - it was crazy. Chad's actually been pretty stressed out, too - work is very busy and of course, his grandfather just passed away, which isn't easy on the psyche either. Luckily, Chad does not throw tantrums involving fruit leather when he gets cranky.