It’s hot here.  We have air conditioning in only one room — the living room, which is great for the day times but rough at night.  Liam has a hard time sleeping at night.  He, like me, is really sensitive to being to warm, whereas B will wear long pajamas, ask to have his blankets (ALL 7 of them) tucked in around him and still sleep through the night with only an oscillating fan to cool him off.  Liam isn’t like that, though.  I was up with Liam much of the night last night.  (Which is unfortunate, because although he wants to be cuddled because he’s uncomfortable, being cuddled only makes us both hotter.  My attempts to explain this don’t seem to be getting through.)

Which is why I was up at 4:30 this morning, wondering, “What light through yonder window breaks?  It is the east, and . . . wait . . . is that the sun?  Really?  It’s 4:37 in the morning?!?”  It wasn’t *quite* the sun (sunrise wasn’t until a whole 20 minutes later) but it was light out.  Really, honest to goodness, not just a bit of dawn, but seriously light out, at 4:37 this morning.

Vienna is at a much more northern latitude than I am used to (more like southern Canada, and I’m used to the mid-Atlantic) and even after experiencing this same thing last summer, I’m still astonished by it.  My kids rise with the sun, so they get up shortly after the sun is up (even though we’ve added blackout curtains since last year — some light gets past) and it is so hard to get them in bed before 10:00 at night (because, of course, it’s STILL light out).

It’s temporary.  This morning was actually the earliest sunrise of the year (I will have to do more research to figure out why that doesn’t coincide with the longest day of the year) so our rising times should get later from here on out.  It makes me wonder, though . . . what do parents in Alaska, Scandinavia, and even more northern latitudes do?  Do they get ANY sleep in June?