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Late Night or Early Morning?

Kerry gets up to exercise at 4:30 am several days a week.  I know, he's crazy.

He has a workout area set up in the basement, right next to Ben's bedroom.  This isn't generally an issue  because 1) Ben is usually at college during the week and Kerry doesn't get up as early on the weekends when Ben is home and 2) Ben is a rock solid sleeper and doesn't wake up before noon even if the fire alarm is going off, much less if someone is merely exercising nearby.

Now that Ben is in college and in charge of his own schedule he often stays up until 2:00 in the morning playing on his computer which in turn makes him sleep extra late the next day.  He tells me regularly that he is "technically an adult", a statement which makes me roll my eyes so far back in my head I can see the back of my skull some days.  Most adults don't stay up all night playing games and then sleep in until lunch, but whatever.  He makes good grades, hasn't formed a drug habit, doesn't drink or smoke and goes to church every Sunday.  The college years are pretty much the only time in his life he will have the luxury of late nights and late mornings, so I don't  harp at him.

Much.

One morning this week when Kerry went downstairs to work out, he found Ben lying in bed still playing on his computer.  He'd tried out a new game that his roommate was fond of and apparently was unable to let go of the mouse.

"Ben!  Have you been up all night??"

"Oh no, I just woke up, I haven't been up long," Ben responded.  At 4:30 in the morning.

Ben actually said that with a straight face.

That night during family game night, Kerry started teasing Ben about it.

"Oh yeah, Ben woke up at 4:30 in the morning and started playing a game on his computer."

"Ben did??  Ben???" The girls and I chorused.  We know the odds of Ben waking up early for anything less than an earthquake that splits the foundation of the house.

"I just happened to wake up at 5:00 and couldn't sleep so I decided to play a game."

"Ben, it was 4:30 in the morning," Kerry said.  Then he looked at me and mimed how Ben looked with his right hand on the mouse, barely able to hold his eyes open and looking blearily at me while swaying slightly. I started to snicker.

"Ben," I said grinning broadly, "You don't get out of bed until noon and then it's only after I've come down twice to tell you to get moving!  And you want us to believe that you woke up that early?"

"I don't see what the big deal is," Ben groused.  "I woke up early, so what??"

Kerry and I both started to laugh.  This was like catching your kid with chocolate all around his mouth while he steadfastly denies that he has had any candy.

"At 4:30 in the morning?  You, of all people??"

The more he denied it the funnier it got and every so often Kerry would mimic Ben trying to hold his eyes open and peer around the table at us until we were laughing so hard that Kerry and I were actually leaning on each other to hold each other up.

"Of course you just happened to wake up before dawn and decided to play a game on your computer!  Of course, you didn't stay up all night!"

Teens really think we just sit around and drool on ourselves, don't they?

Or I guess I should say "technical adults" think "actual adults" just drool, don't they?


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