Unplugged

I found one of our long-lost alarm clocks this morning.  Not that I was looking.  But there it was in the bottom of a "much miscellaneous" bag in our basement.  Our alarm clocks have been in hiding since the move last month and I can't say that I've missed them.  It's part of the luxury of having this time off- not having to glance furtively at the clock and curse at the passage of hours.  Not having to rush off, jump out of bed before the sleep has lifted.  But there it was...

Our life without the alarm clock has gone on much the same, thanks to Silas's unwavering circadian rhythm.  6:15am- pretty much every morning.  Except one day last week that it was 4:30... and I misjudged the amount of light coming into our room and I relented ("Mommy Up.  Daddy Up.  Breakfast?"), wandered downstairs, discovered the real time and marched us back up into bed with a sippy cup of milk in tow.

It's not the alarm itself I mind- it's my obsessive need to check it several times before relaxing into sleep.  It's my habit of checking it as I wake up in the middle of the night to count the hours or minutes until rising time.  It's my life that demands I leave the warm bed and my family to run into the world before my body is ready to get up and go.  It's the sweet feeling of relaxing, blissfully unaware of the passage of time.  

So, for now, I think I will keep it unplugged and out of sight.  Continue to let go of the daily grind.  Keep the bedroom a place a little more separate from the rest of the world.  Allowing the filtered sunlight and my two year old to bring me into the next day rather than talk of tragedies, economies, sports scores and weather reports.  A little less driven for today, a little less plugged in, a little more connected.