One happy side effect of motherhood has been that caffeine no longer affects my sleep.
Diet Coke with dinner? SURE!! NO problem. When I finally get to bed, I get right to sleep.
This summer I found my natural rhythm: fall asleep around midnight and wake up between 6:30 and 8, depending on how gracious Adam was that particular morning.
Now that school has started, I head to bed between 9:30 and 11 and the alarm rings between 5 and 5:45 depending on what my morning holds.
Still 7-8 hours, definitely not the SAME 7-8 hours.
I don’t know why it makes such a difference. I slide, slither, mope my way out of bed these days to the shower. I took one look at my face this morning and the extreme puffiness of my eyes made me wonder if I had spent the night crying or drinking or both and simply forgot about the fun or the pain. Whichever.
So while I still fall asleep – light has become a big issue for me. It has to be dark. Dark, dark, dark.
Two nights ago, I laid down and realized that the itty bitty NIGHT LIGHT across the hall in Ismael’s bathroom was goingto be an issue. It was shining its itty bitty 2 watt heart out right into my eyes.
I shut the bedroom door enough to block it but still able to hear Adam and threw myself down on the bed.
My thought stream went something like this:
WOW it’s dark. Really dark.
And quiet. What happened to the fan?
Umm uh oh. The alarm clock is off too.
OH MY GOD, IPL. I PROMISE I PAID THE BILL TODAY. I’M SORRY IT WAS LATE. I SWEAR I WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN. ok yes i will but we can’t help it.
Waaaaait…a…minute… They don’t shut power off at 10 pm.
(find glasses, use cell phone light as a lamp)
Where is a candle? A lighter? I had one from the retreat today. In my pocket. In the white pants Adam threw up on immediately upon seeing me and now they are in the washer. Did I wash the lighter too? Probably.
Crap. I can’t see.
(I find a candle. call Ismael, call the power company, call Ismael again and finally settle down to sleep)
How will I sleep with no air conditioning? No fan? Waaah. (repeat a million times for 30 minutes when the power came back on and the fan roared to life)
Ahh….. the fan. I love my fan. I can go to sleep.
Crap. Ismael’s night light is in my eyes.
(some people are just never satisfied.)
The end.
…
I hate when my schedule changes as it always takes so long to get use to. Glad the electric came back on.
Girl, I can drink a diet coke and set it on the nightstand, turn off the light and go to sleep! Caffeine has no effect unfortunately!
Sometimes I wonder if it’s a matter of waking up and being woken up. I do much better when I wake up on my own as opposed to an alarm clock going off and waking me up.
Either way, I hate alarm clocks.