I have to write these posts in the morning. Or at least before the children are in bed. Because otherwise I get sucked into the Internet, lose track of time and stay up until 1:30 am. Although I was certain it wasn't yet midnight. I think I need to change the clock on my computer so it isn't an analog face with no numbers. Makes it too easy to see what I want to see. I used to have it announce the time on the hour, but having a voice speak out of the darkness made me jump. Had a great day yesterday. Went to see a great production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. We had friends in the chorus so we drove out for the day. Perfect day for a drive-- not too sunny and not too warm. What I should have done was come home, read a little and go to sleep. Instead I read a bunch of articles about why it was difficult for me to get to sleep when my mind is racing. Which did not help me keep figure out how to stop my mind from racing and get to sleep. It wasn't racing with bad things, even. Just interesting things. I need to only do boring things before I go to sleep. My kids used to listen to the Star Wars radio broadcasts on CD every night at bedtime. Until we discovered that they were so involved in the story that they were staying up super late to hear the whole story. And even if we turned the CD off, their imaginations were so engaged that they had trouble getting to sleep. The prescription: no exciting movies before bedtime. No stories on tape. Calming activities. Quiet music if anything. Magic. I don't have a grown-up telling me to do only calming activities. And I am not sure what they are, really. Knitting seems like it should be calming, but I can be enthralled by the process and knit far into the night. This is true for any of my crafty activities. Clearly writing or doing anything on the computer is folly. Reading might be the best candidate. Even though I am known to read until I drop the book on my face I am less likely to stay up ridiculously late. I think I might need to assign myself a bedtime. A curfew. And develop some kind of soothing bedtime routine. This sounds like the kind of thing that well-rested people do naturally. It is certainly the kind of thing that I have been teaching my children. Okay, so what are some good calming bedtime things... drinking a cup of herbal tea, taking a warm bath, reading something nonfiction maybe, and having a lights out time long before midnight. It is ridiculous that I have to do this. How about 10:30. If I start my bedtime routine at 10:30 and have lights out at 11:00? Most days that would give me eight hours of sleep. And I supposed I could start gradually pushing it toward 10:00. The problem is I really like nighttime when the house is quiet and I can watch things on Netflix that are not appropriate for two year olds. I can cuss and spit and be as sarcastic as I wanna be. Sleep just seems like a waste of time. I know it isn't. But knowing and doing are two different things. Insomniac Grateful Crap: making today an arbitrary weekend (until 5pm when I work), cooler summer days, my neighborhood with its native prairie gardens, libraries to keep my kids in books
Daily Convexions
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |