Do you wake up in the same stream of consciousness as you were in the night before? Sometimes I'm consumed by or focused on something the night before and it occupies my thoughts as I fall asleep, my dreams while I'm sleep and my thinking when I wake up. But generally I'm in a different state of mind when I wake up - calmer, fresher, thinking about what's in store for the day ahead.
Audrey often wakes up thinking and talking about exactly the same stuff that was going on the night before. If, when she's getting tired, she's begging for ice cream but doesn't get any, she may wake up and the first thing out of her mouth is about getting that ice cream fix (she's uses different words). Same goes for any kind of sugary substance that she's been denied the evening before; on awakening it's, "Daddy, can I have [fill in the blank]?" And she's not thinking "later today" - she's thinking right then and there.
At bedtime sometimes she'll ask to fall asleep in our bed. Most of the time that's okay with us but I usually move her to her bed later. When she wakes up the very first thing she'll ask, "Daddy, why did you move me to my bed?" (To which I respond, "Because you sleep better in your bed," or with, "Because it's safer in your bed - it has rails so you don't fall out," and always followed by, "But we missed you and thought about you all night!"
Clearly for toddlers there are things that are so consuming that they are at their mental forefront in their initial waking hours - as I write this it seems that anything that has to do with intense wants or desires is on tap when Audrey wakes the next day. Perhaps intense fears would fit in there as well but I'd have to think more on that. It's kind of like we push the "Standby" button on a computer and everything gets stored in RAM. And then we push the "On" button and it's like she never missed a beat.
