I’ve mentioned before how my kids are vampires. They are still awake in the wee hours of the morning when everyone else is asleep. Sometimes they tell their father, who leaves around 4:30 a.m., goodbye.

I’ve heard of people like this. In fact, my mother’s cousin is one of them. When we invited her and her daughters out to lunch one day, she came stumbling into the restaurant asking, “What is this Chinese food at noon of which you speak? I’m ready for bacon and eggs.” When she found out I wake between six and seven, she asked me what I did that early in the morning.

My husband worked second shift for a short time after my youngest daughter was born. It was convenient to have the extra help late at night when he’d come home around 11 p.m. My youngest had minor health issues and couldn’t sleep lying down. So he’d sleep on the couch with her until around 4 in the morning when she got hungry and we’d switch places. Then he’d finish his sleep in bed, I’d feed my daughter, and take the next couch sleeping shift.

He’d get up with our oldest around 7 a.m. and play with her while my youngest and I got a few more Zs. The problem was my oldest, after having her playmate father for most the day, would have great expectations of me after he left in the early afternoon. I was an exhausted, post-birth mom, not really in the playing mood, and feeling very trapped in the house with two little ones all evening.

When my husband finally got back on day shift, I met him at the door as he arrived home at 3 p.m. that first day, handed him the baby, and flew out the door for an hour to myself, because the coffee shops were still open.

The reality of life is that most business is conducted during the daylight hours. There’s not much open when it’s the dead of night. I’m always trying to encourage my daughters to be on a day schedule, but I understand some people just work better at night. I used to stay up until midnight after my youngest was able to sleep flat in her crib. It was quiet and my husband had to get up early so he’d be in bed. The noise in my head would subside and help wind me down. It was bliss.

Then my mother moved in with us. Because she was there to tend the kids when they woke up, I started life guarding an early morning lap swim. I really had to get to bed at a decent hour then, but I never reclaimed my vampire senses even after I quit a couple years later.

So when I try to get my daughters to establish a daytime routine, they look at me in wonder and I can see the birds tweeting over their heads. My youngest daughter is doing freelance work from home for a transcription company, she starts working about the time I go to bed around ten and my oldest just applied to a job that she’d probably be on a graveyard shift.

My biggest emphasis for my daughters has always been to establish a schedule so they could be productive members of society. I guess going to bed in the wee hours of the morning and waking up in time for dinner is a schedule. But I don’t have to like it.

Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com, on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.”or follow her on Twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Lifestyles section.