Monday through Friday my alarm goes off at 5:15.

I hit the snooze once. Five minutes later, it’s blaring once again.

I give Jake a nudge, “It’s time to get up.”

And so he does, he mills about getting dressed and finding where he misplaced his car keys the night before ( No Joke… EVERY DAY.) And he let’s me sleep, just a bit longer. (Mostly I don’t sleep… I hide under the covers and random things just spurt out of my mouth like “That light, why is that light so bright!?” and he laughs at me.) And then at 5:40, I get up, stumbling about with bed head and morning breath to make his lunch for the day. He sits watching the news, checking the weather, and eating his breakfast.

I have come to enjoy this little routine. Don’t get me wrong. I am not, have never been, and probably will never be a morning person. But, I know that Jake appreciates that I get up for 10 minutes (TEN MINUTES… it’s nothing) to spend just with him. So I do it.

I used to always crawl back into bed after he left for work to sleep until about 6:45. But I figured out that it actually makes me more tired. So the past few days I’ve stayed up. And now the whole morning routine is just a little less agonizing for me. Sometimes things are worth a little extra effort. It tends to pay off.