ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN….hello pussycat woahwoahwoah a wo!

I poured myself a cup of coffee this morning. It was quiet and dark and everyone was still sleeping. I really like days like this and it makes me think about that ‘Folgers’ commercial the networks run every holiday season where the son comes home from the armed forces and brews a cup of coffee and the parents wake up to the smell and then they see their son. It all seems so magical. It is such a powerful commercial I can practically smell the coffee brewing from the tv. It gets me every time.

The smell of coffee takes me back to my own memories of waking up during my high school years. I remember the coffee aroma floating its way up to my bedroom. It’s such a comforting memory. But perhaps what I remember most is how my mom used to blast Tom Jones ”Hello Pussycat” on our mini-stereo and come running upstairs to serenade me. It was the most annoying way to wake up. And I know the lyrics are not “Hello Pussycat” but rather “What’s New Pussycat”, but my mom modified them to fit our situation. She wouldn’t spare me absolute embarrassment when I had a friend over for the night either…in fact she would crank it up a little louder. My mom is a morning person. When I was a teenager trying to get in my 15 hours of sleep, it was absolutely brutal to wake up to someone who is functioning on level 10 when I am barely on level 1.

There were other times where I would find her in the basement with her swishy workout suit on pumping iron with Gilliad on the workout channel. I (again barely on level 1) would just sit and watch her. That’s where a level 10 first thing in the morning comes in handy. She had a smile on her face and was already full board with her positive energy at 6:30 am.

Fast forward to today where I am the morning person occasionally (the word ‘occasionally’ is important here, because I still enjoy sleeping in every now and then) getting up early, sometimes going for a run, sometimes brewing a cup of coffee and watching the news. I did wake up one morning to find Phoebe in the wicker basket beside our couch. She was wrapped in blankets all curled up and clutching her purple blanket. I bent down to see if she was really sleeping (cause mom’s know how to detect that stuff) and she was out. The heavy breathing gave her away. She must have come out during the night at some point and climbed right in. “Better her than me” I said to myself and brewed myself that nice morning coffee.

I don’t know what it is about this basket. It’s not a big basket, but it is just the right size to attract small children. Every child that comes in our house has climbed into that basket. It’s like catnip to a child. Phoebe stayed in the basket for another hour while I drank my coffee and watched the news. I kept thinking, “man she’s going to be so cramped” but she sprang out of the little wicker basket with no problems.

In my college years I became the early riser and once my mom retired she purposefully lost her alarm clock. Now she enjoys sleeping in until 8:30 most days. Unless she’s at our house. My girls get up around 6:30. Cecilia likes to serenade everyone in the house from her crib. Right now, she’s belting out ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen. At 6:30 am, it is equally annoying as my mother’s early morning rendition of the ‘Pussycat’ song. I also encourage Abby and Phoebe to go on into her room as soon as they wake up!! When my mom is over for a visit, I almost feel as if it is some sort of payback for tormenting her tired teenager all those years.