Rise and Shine !!

I think I've written before in this space how I am not a morning person. I assumed my reluctance to get out of bed was a high school/college problem, and that when I grew up to be an adult, I would bound out of bed to go conquer the world every day. That has not happened, unfortunately. At 7 o'clock in the morning, there isn't much difference between me and a 17-year-old about to miss her first period class.

Except for this one, tiny thing:

Julian came in early this morning, pantless (more on that later), carrying a small, plastic mechanical rooster. I didn't see this, I just heard it. He put it up next to my ear, which was attached to my deeply sleeping head, and he pulled a little trigger under the rooster's belly that makes him do what roosters do: COCK A DOODLE DOO!!!!!!

Oh, and the rooster also has this Berlin-wall era spotlight that blasts light out of his mouth whenever he crows. So there was that, too.

Once I pealed myself off of the ceiling, Julian was there next to the bed, smiling, wearing only a skimpy Spiderman tank top.

"Hi, Mommy!!"

And then a question from me that seemed like the only logical thing I could ask: "Julian, where are your pants?"

"I don't know," he says, then: "Mommy, my rooster wants you to wake up. He wants breakfast."

My eyes are closed again and I can hear Julian jogging from one foot to the other, unsettled by my lack of verve. "What does the rooster like to eat?" I ask, my eyes still closed.

Julian calms down. Good, I gave him something to keep his head busy for ten seconds so that's ten more seconds of sleep for me. "I know! He likes doughnuts, and he likes corn and he likes bugs." Of course he does.

"Mommy? Can you get him his corn and his doughnuts and his bugs? You have to get up. They are with the kitchen toys." Julian is jogging left-right-left again and I know my seconds are numbered.

"Mommy?"

My eyes are closed again.

"Mooooommmmmy!! Youuuuu'rrrre noooot geeetttting uuuuuup!!"

No kidding. Then I think of another stall tactic: "Julian, why don't you find your pants and then we can make rooster's breakfast together?"

Julian stops jogging. I can tell he's thinking. Then I hear: COCK A DOODLE DOO!! and the rooster-mouth strobe hits my closed eyelids again. "But Mooooommmmy. I don't knooooooow wheeeere are my paaaaaaants," he whines.

"When did you take them off?"

"At night. I think at night, in my bed. I don't like sleeping with pants."

OK, this is new. I think I'm starting to realize that Julian has more libido than a three-year-old can handle.

I roll off the side of our queen-size sleigh bed (oh, queen-size sleigh bed, how I love thee!). As I follow Julian to find the rooster's doughnuts, corn and bugs, I wonder who bought us this rooster and hope that we aren't friends with them anymore. And then, when I'm more awake, I'm going to accidentally "lose" the rooster somewhere like, say, in the trash can.