My Toddler is NOT a Morning Person

As a parent, it is really cool to see your own traits in your kids. . . at least it is most of the time. It is also fun to see the mix of you and their other parent all in one little person. It makes me laugh at how people see different likenesses in my kids. When I go out I frequently have people tell me that my kids look exactly like me. The next day Mike will get the same comment. It is so weird to me how children can manage to look like both parents even when those parents look nothing alike. Weird, but cool!

One behavior that I definitely attribute to good genetics is how well my kids sleep. I was always a great sleeper and Mike definitely was too. I have mentioned before how that is the biggest key to me keeping my sanity. I don't want to complain, but I must admit there is a flip side to the good sleeper thing and that is the inability to wake up well. This one I'm going to blame Mike for, he is horrible to wake up in the mornings. I don't have to deal with it throughout the week thanks to his job, but it is a regular weekend battle at our place. Kaelan is starting to develop the same lack of grace in the morning as his dad. Sure enough, he is slowly getting worse and worse as the months roll by.

Here is an example of what is becoming an increasingly more typical morning for us. Kaelan hears me coming to get him up so he hides in his blankets as he continues to sleep:

I watch him for a while under the covers and he seemed to be genuinely asleep under there. When he is pretending to sleep he giggles so I know he isn't just playing with me. I gently tell him we have to get up. . . no response. I tell him a little louder and he grumbles a little, shifts positions, and is still again:

I pull some covers off and he grumbles at me again before proceeding to fall back asleep:

 I tell him to get up again and he continues to grumble at me. He has told me to "go way mama" several times in the past. I tell him that is rude but all that gets me is "peas go way mama". So I pull him up to a sitting position so that he can't just lie there with his eyes closed. He is not a happy dude:

From experience, he starts his morning in a much better mood if I can convince him to get up instead of just forcing him out of bed. I try to entice him out. I asked him if he wants a banana and he got excited for a second:

 I went to the kitchen, grabbed a banana, and came back to this twenty seconds later:

Honestly, most mornings I just pull him out of bed and let him work out his own bad mood. It doesn't really last long once he is distracted. Sometimes I like to drag it out like this because it amuses me, and the things that come out of his mouth make me giggle. A couple of weekends ago our conversation went like this:
Me - Kaelan it is time for my baby to get up.
Kaelan - No baby!
Me - Not a baby? Is Kaelan a big boy then?
Kaelan - Big boy, no baby.
Me - OK then, big boys get out of bed, they don't sleep in cribs all day.
Kaelan - Kaelan baby!

I have been told I was difficult to wake up in the mornings as a young kid too, so I can't blame it entirely on Mike. . . don't tell him that though. I will take credit for our child being a ham though. Exhibit A:

Me at age 4 and Kaelan at age 2

By the way - Kaelan does normally sleep in pajamas but it was a warm night and I prefer to leave off clothes than to crank the AC too much. Secondly, those blankets in the bed with him were stolen from my clean laundry hamper the night before. The pink one is a throw for the living room and the blue one is a Cars towel. The boy is a nester!