Tag: Sleep

There are themes that will run through your life as a mother and one of those is kids and sleep.

When they’re babies you will beg for them to sleep because until then, you have never known the sort of fatigue that makes you long for the grave. (Okay a bit of a stretch. Maybe.) When they’re a bit older, you’ll beg for them to stay in their own beds as they roam the halls like apparitions in search of a place to lay their heads, with a keen eye on your bed. On the cusp of adolescence, you’ll wonder how many consecutive hours a human being can sleep and whether it’s your imagination that they seem to grow two inches every night.

Good Enough Mother is in one of those periods. This summer, as every summer, I have been sort of lax with the kids and their bedtime. My feeling is they are going to be on a schedule soon enough so what’s the harm in letting them stay up?

Imagine my surprise when I got up the other morning at 4:45 to put Olivia out and ran right into my bleary-eyed son. “What are you doing awake?” I was so startled that my query came in the form of a whispered yell. That’s when he told me that he was going for a personal best, trying to stay awake for 24 straight hours. Now I am not a 12-year-old boy so the things he does more often than not, make me scratch my head. This one really boggled my mind because there are few things better than sleep. Well, wine. Wine, followed by sleep.