I never thought I'd be an early riser...

I used to love nothing better than sleeping in. Then I had my son.

I promise this isn't the same old blog post by an exhausted mom who just wants her kid to go the f!@# to sleep already after years of midnight feedings and bedtime battles. Nope. I am blessed beyond measure to have a little boy who started sleeping straight through the night within a month of coming home from the hospital. He'd go down for the night around 8, maybe wake up around 11 or 12 for one more nursing or bottle session, then sleep for nine hours. When he was a year or two old, his sleep time stretched to 12 hours. And he took naps, sometimes three-hour naps, until about six months ago. He will be five in October.

Parents, especially my fellow solo moms, you want to smack me a little, huh?

Let's call it a fist bump, because believe me, I'm getting mine now. Kiddo still loves his sleep, but mama is wildly busy and also still trying to be a writer.

Just write when he goes to bed, they all say.

Guess who is at her absolute least creative after working two jobs, doing the laundry of what seems like 47 people, updating her merciless calendar, scrubbing the scummy, slow-draining tub before she can even bathe her child, packing lunches, calling to find out when the effing car will finally be fixed, cleaning up, and remembering the garbage gets picked up the next morning? This woman. What Kim Brooks calls "the white noise of parenthood. The low-level, chronic hum of anxious agitation," is strongest for me at night when I should be relaxing or, according to other (almost always male) writers, channeling an imaginary cache of creative genius instead of just trying to find a de-cluttered surface to plop down the mental load.

After 8 PM, my energy level is at about a 2. Perfect for collapsing on the couch for 30 minutes of HGTV while feeling guilty for not reading one of the 12 books I'm halfway through instead.

Early morning is a realm entirely new to me. It's so quiet! I rise and move through the first bit of light like a self-care ninja--no one has ever made coffee or done sun salutations so noiselessly. I sneak back to my room with my cup, check my weather and calendar to get a sense of the day, and head to my desk. Lately, I'm averaging a good hour of me time, word time, writing time, focus time, before my day even really begins.

It's the best.

Not that it isn't sometimes difficult to pull myself out of bed before I absolutely have to, but the lure of distraction-free writing time is just too great. I never thought I'd love 5:45 AM as much as I do.