Mornings Bite

Mornings at the Shepherd house can get pretty ugly. I am not a morning person. Every morning is a battle! It's a fight for me to peel myself out of bed.....then the dreadful walk up the stairs.....first is Ethan, piece of cake! He's up, he's starving, he wants cereal......2 or 3 bowls of cereal. Next is my bed head, Chloe.....I start off kind and sweet even though I want to go back to bed myself....ugh, she won't budge.....she won't open her eyes.....then I move on to "my stern voice", nothing....then the threats come.....1/2 hour earlier bed time, no dsi, no tv time, no computer time (I switch them up each day)...... Slowly but surely she emerges from the stairs.....Ethan has already eaten, gotten dressed and moved on to his chores. Breakfast for Chloe is always a battle....she's not hungry in the morning...she hates all cereal. I've tried making bacon or eggs or sausage, which she loves, just not right when she wakes up. I make her gag something down and then she's off to get dressed......where her clothes are even laid out for her....she then lays on the couch staring off into space.....once again, I move on to "my stern voice", nothing....then the threats come.....1/2 hour earlier bed time, no dsi, no tv time, no computer time...... I give her five minutes to get dressed.... Finally she's dressed, barely brushes her teeth, (her hair is another story that I wont get into) there's no time for chores (she has those to look forward to after school). Her behavior has put me into many rages of screaming and yelling, then guilt while she's at school feeling bad for the way we left each other...until recently I realized she's just like me in the morning! Duh. I should be more understanding.....not wanting to get out of bed, not hungry in the morning, tired, just plain tired....eventually, we come out of our morning funk and go about our day....it's not that big of a deal. Once I realized she's not always being defiant, this is just how she is, things have gotten better. She's always been this way, she would sleep until 10am when she was an infant and toddler (which I loved) We're night owls and not morning people...However, this morning, privileges were lost because she didn't get dressed in five minutes, well, not even ten minutes, but I only lost it a little bit.....it's definitely a work in progress!