Great-grandson Jack wakes up at 4 a.m. these days.

5 things:

1.  Grandson Sean's wife, Laura--mother of Jack aged about 18 months, started back to school (teaching special education, grades 1-3) this week, and Jack has taken to waking up at 4 a.m.!  Laura is desperate for another hour or two of sleep that time of day before she has to face all those little kids.  What to do? 

2.   I never had that problem.  My kids all slept the night through--except Sally, who would bail herself out of her crib, scan the coffee table for any leftover snacks, then come stand beside our bed
with her potato-chip breath and bump the mattress.  It was verra early, though there was light in the sky, and I'd just haul her into bed with us and she'd nap a little until the others woke up and requested breakfast.

3.  Peggy woke up very early one morning, and she and Sally let themselves out of the house and
got into the horse barn, where one of the horse promptly kicked Peggy when she wafted into her stall
and gave her a light pat.  Probably scared the heck out of the horse, and it wasn't a bad kick.  just put a bruise into Peggy's thigh and sent both girls weeping back into the house.  I got up, dressed everyone, and drove her into the ER to make sure there was nothing seriously the matter. 

4.  It was hard being deaf and not able to rely on my hearing to monitor the kids when I was sleeping.

5.  The owner of the horse, whose name also was Margaret, explained to the girls that they should never go into the pen or the barn when the horses were there, and they should never give them a light pat.  And so we got through that episode.