The other day, G went to sleep at 7:15pm, about an hour earlier than usual. A few minutes later, I went to sleep-- about three hours earlier than normal. I think I was more exhausted than she she was.
Lately, when we go out to eat, we usually arrive at our restaurant of choice around 5pm. Just in time to dine with all the senior citizens (and I live in the South, so there are a lot of them).
I call it the early bird special.
There's that old cliche "the early bird catches the worm". Oh really? For a good portion of the last 11 months, I have been that proverbial "early bird". Waking up? For the first six months of my daughter's life, I was up just about every morning at 4:30am, first to feed and change the baby, later to pump. I can assure you, there were no worms to be caught at that miserable time of day. Only dark circles undereath my eyes and saggy, sallow, sleep-deprived skin. But no worms. I promise you.
Mealtimes? It's not unknown in our house to eat lunch at 11:30am, and dinner at 4:30pm. I have a friend who swears she doesn't eat dinner until long after I'm in bed. I've even arrived at restaurants for dinner before the dinner menu has officially begun! And let me assure you, I've never seen worms on the menu.
And then, there's bedtime. I must admit, there have been nights when I am so exhausted from the stresses of the day that I've started G's complicated night-time routine (bath, lotion, Desitin, nursing, white noise, favorite binky, "Go to sleep, mama loves you, see you in the morning", close the door-- every night for 10 months, three weeks and one day) eh... a little earlier... than normal. OK, sometimes a LOT earlier. In fact, for the majority of the past three months, as the sun as set later and later in the day, G has gone to sleep before dusk. There are days when I'm so tired by 4pm, I want to head upstairs for a warm bath myself. Isn't there somebody to put me in bed when I'm cranky and rubbing my eyes?
I know there will be times over the coming years when G refuses to go to sleep before the sun... when she wants to stay all night... when she insists on staying up all night. I know there will be Saturday mornings during her high school years when she sleeps in until noon, and never manages to get out of her pajamas all day. There will be a whole decade, I'm sure, when just getting her out of the house to go anywhere will be a challenge.
So for now, I am more than happy to be the early bird... worms and all.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, August 05, 2009
.
You can leave a response
and follow any responses to this entry through the
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.
1 comments
Post a Comment
Being an early bird is definitely something I'm going to have to get used to once baby arrives! Our natural tendency is to stay up late, wake up late (too bad we can't when we are working though). I'm not sure if I'm that friend you were saying swears she eats dinner after you're in bed or not, but it's very common in our house to not sit down to dinner until after 10 pm. Things that will definitely have to change when we're a threesome and not just the two of us!