Go to Bed Early

What usually happens is I say, “I should go to bed early,” but then I creep on Facebook for 30 more minutes, finish up six or seven odd jobs around the house, and/or think of a few new texts I need to send. Now this evening I switched the laundry and started the dishwasher before jumping in the shower and then cozying myself into the bed, but I did go straight to those designated tasks after laying baby girl in her bed, so that, much to my satisfaction, all the kids were asleep by 7:30, and I was in my bed, too, at 8:15. The last light wasn’t turned off yet, but my phone was. Postpartum insomnia could interfere, but if it doesn’t… Hallelujah.

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The next morning–it was Monday–I awoke at 6:00 to the sound of a hungry baby. I had been up a time or two with one or more kids, but had gone back to sleep quickly each time, for a gleaming total of 8 hours of sleep in one night! This is a rare, big deal, for me. The big kids had also awoken at 6, but by some grace had chosen to tiptoe to the playroom instead of coming to talk to me, so that I nursed the baby and even took a shower before they came to me at 7.

“The green light is on!”

In bygone days, The Green Light meant it was okay for Miryam to come out of her room in the morning. Now that Luke shares the room, and his regard for rules is low, and his circadian rhythm insists on rising before the sun, the green light now indicates the earliest I will come to the kitchen to make them breakfast. Preferably, they wouldn’t talk to me at all until then. As unloving as that sounds, I’m a much nicer mom right at 7:00 when I’ve been allowed to wake up naturally and had at least half an hour of no one asking me questions, during which to really wake up. I would say “half an hour of silence,” but Cecily’s morning noises don’t bother me the way whining about whose turn it is to have the yellow bowl (Every. Single. Morning.) does.

So, my night of sleeping only slightly interrupted, 9pm to 6am, and having a relatively serene 6-7am, gave me the get-up-and-go needed to choose to take these lovely children with me to the zoo! I let the kids get ready only as fast as they would with my gentler reminders; I was trying so hard to get through the morning without yelling. We were finally loaded in the car—everyone’s teeth brushed, lunch packed, shoes on—around 9:00, which was perfect, because morning rush hour had subsided before we even hit the highway, making the drive into Dallas as pleasant as possible.

The weather was gorgeous. It felt like my ideal September weather: jeans and short sleeves, no sweating involved, even with a baby in the front carrier on me all day.

“Do you want to go see the tiger and the monkeys, or the penguins and the hippo?”

We headed toward the penguins. Penguins, Cheetahs, Flamingos, Can we ride the train?, Let me see how much it costs…probably not, Hippo.

Let’s have a snack. It’s shady here and not crowded. There goes the train! That’s a monorail train. You know what, let’s ride it after all. Luke is only free for the next month, and there’s only one adult to have to pay for today…this is the best possible deal we can get on it. Finish your pretzels. Say bye-bye to the baby hippo.

Hold onto your tickets. Sit down on your bottom. Sit. On your bottom. I can’t hold you, Cecily is sleeping in here. Stay seated.

The monorail train ride was totally worth the $14. We got great angles of several animals you can barely see from the walking paths, learned lots of cool facts from the cheesy dad-jokes tour guide (I am a sucker for animal facts! While not an “animal lover,” I am in awe of the diversity of the animal kingdom…so many highly specialized adaptations. Amazing!), and we got a break from the bickering about who was going to get to ride in the stroller. I hadn’t brought the double today.

We stayed an hour longer than I meant to, which means all three kids fell hard asleep in the car on the way home. But, I had plans to go to a meeting that night, and my favorite neighbor had agreed to babysit the big kids for free so I could, under the assumption that those kids would be asleep for the night by the time she came over. I cannot have these children take a real nap today, or they will be wide awake at 8:30. No no no!

So, I woke them up from their 18 minute nap. They were grumptastic about that. They hadn’t had any screen time today, so I purchased their cheerfulness for the price of offering to turn on The Lion King. References had been dropped at the zoo—

Side note. If you don’t reference The Lion King when you go to the zoo, I don’t know if we can be friends. You might be a lovely human being, but there would be an irreconcilable difference in our worldviews there. Like, what do you even think when you look at a warthog, if not “Pumbaa!” Anyway…

—so it was the most natural transition from moody sleepy minivan time to chill cheerful couch time that I could think of. Compliance.

When I turned on the TV, I decided to play Lion King 1½ instead of the original. It received my children’s approbation.

“Mommy, the regular Lion King isn’t this funny!”

I actually sat and watched the movie with them, which I don’t often do. There’s always so much else “to do.” But with Justin out of town, I’d set my expectations of myself to “bare minimum.” We’d already all brushed our teeth for the day. We’d gotten our fresh air and exercise. None of the laundry was urgent, and dinner was going to be noodles with olive oil and parmesan, the end. Might as well laugh at the silly jokes and snuggle my precious offspring.

At the end of the movie, we had a dance party, because the credit music throws me back to the driveway at the Claremont house (my childhood home), when my sisters and I made unfilmed “music videos” for every song on that soundtrack. The kids thought it was hilarious that I knew all the words.

The rest of the evening was noodles and cheese, reading books, meandering toward bedtime routine, letting it linger since they’d snuck tiny naps, and finally kissing them goodnight, a little later than I meant to, but still early enough that they were asleep a good half hour before my neighbor arrived. I whisked Cecily away with me in her car seat, and went to my meeting, where some close friends and I talked about the theological virtue of faith, what it looks like for real, and also about our cycle charting, because in a group of women who all practice Natural Family Planning, it always comes up. Other things, too. Filling up our little mom tanks with non-childcare (nevermind the two of us with nursing babies) and comeraderie. Thank God for these women.

I went to bed later that night, of course, as a result. But it was a good, long day. I’ll admit the next three nights and days went rather less smoothly than Monday. Less sleep, more yelling. More humility (learned; sometimes practiced). But we survived! And we—all four of us—were so happy to see Daddy when he got home on Thursday. Our family needs him. We can function well for about 24 hours without him, and then we need him more than we realized. Going to bed early isn’t enough to make me a good mom. I need my best friend at home. Then I’m less tempted to text other friends (read: constantly pick up my phone) all day. Then the big kids have a second place to ask to have their love tanks filled, and mine stays fuller, too, in turn.

Now, if anyone has ideas for how to get Mr. Luke to sleep from 8:15pm-7:00am instead of 7:15pm-6:00am, please help me. He’s just SO TIRED by 7 every night. And when I try moving bedtime back, he still gets up at 6. Daylight savings was not my friend this fall.