It's not late, it's early!

Addie gets up very early in the morning--very early, like pre-5:30 AM early. We kind of become accustomed to it, but it's till jarring to be woken up at 5:15 by a two-year-old standing by your bed, waiting for you to look at her. One morning, she stood in silence until I felt her presence and looked at her--then she quietly asked, "How're you doing, Daddy?" I'm good, and you're lucky you're cute.

I wake up much faster than Anna, so Addie in the AM duty falls to me. Usually, we come out to the living room, and then Addie will sit in my lap while I rock her in the rocking chair, desperately hoping that she'll go back to sleep (Spoiler Alert--she never does). Recently, however, we've had a new development in the early morning travails. Now, immediately after waking up, Addie asks for a breakfast bar (a Kashi graham and fruit bar) or to watch TV. At 5:30, we don't want to let Addie eat or watch TV, because we don't want her thinking that if she gets up early, she'll get rewarded for it. So, the first time she asked, I told her "It's too early for a breakfast bar," or "It's too early for TV." She didn't like it--but she took it in stride. The next morning, again at 5:30, Addie looks at me--very seriously--and says, "Daddy, it's too early for Elm0," meaning we wont be watching TIVOed Sesame Street. Awesome, I think to myself--I'm slowly helping my daughter to wake up later.

Within a couple of days, however, Addie is now randomly saying "It's not early, Daddy!" We've figured that, as long as the sun is out, Addie is convinced that it's not early, either at 7:00 AM or 5:00 PM. Okay--so she's making the realization that daylight tends to mean that it's not too early. But then the kicker. While getting her ready for bed one night, I told her that it was getting late. Addie was befuddled. How can it be late (clearly the opposite of early), when it's dark outside?

I've been trying to tell her about different contexts for late and early. She doesn't seem to get it yet, but she doesn't really care all that much. She still gets up around 5:30, so we're okay. I just don't look forward to Daylight Savings Time completely freaking her out when the sun comes out before 6:00. I guess we'll be eating breakfast bars much earlier.