Five Favourites: Reasons to wake up early

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I'm writing this post to remind myself, more than anyone else, of reasons to get up before my kids. I'm trying to get back into a routine, now the baby's sleeping a bit better, and a bit of extra motivation wouldn't go amiss!

1. Breakfast. 
I am not one of those people who can jump right into the day without eating something first. Whilst I don't require regular doses of caffeine to function (it makes me ill), it's not a good idea to even attempt to talk to me before I've eaten. If I get up before the children, then I can eat breakfast sitting down (not grabbing mouthfuls whilst doing other things). I can even have something different, without the preschooler interrogating me on why I'm not having the same as her or the toddler pilfering half of it.

2. "Grown-up" time. 
Ze husband gets up at 6am at the moment to work on a couple of personal projects before he goes to work. If I get up with him, we actually get to spend some time together as just us, not as parents.

3. Eating my frog.
The eminently-quotable Mark Twain stated that if the first thing you do every morning is to eat a live frog, then it can only get better from there. My "frog" is laundry, particularly hanging it up. If I get a load on early enough, then I can load the airer before the day really gets going, and I feel much, much better knowing that's out of the way!

4. Prayer time. 
At the moment, my prayer time tends to happen just after the children have gone to bed. I'd really like to fit in morning prayer on a regular basis, too, but at the moment, it just isn't happening.

5. Avoiding the Inquisition...
...ahem. Our preschooler is very, very curious and very, very talkative. As an extreme introvert, I don't deal well with a constant stream of questions, especially before breakfast (see above). I can't actually believe I'm admitting this, but I like to give our living room and kitchen a quick once-over before Mx appears in order to remove any evidence of pre-bedtime snacks ("What did you eat? When did you eat that? Why? Can I have some? Why were you hungry? But I'm hungry! You're not allowed to be hungry!), make sure everyone's favourite bowls are available (the alternative doesn't bear thinking about), etc. Not the most edifying of reasons to get out of bed early, but it works for me!

Here's hoping I can keep it up...