Wearing Me Out

Okay, I know moms don’t really get downtime. I know this. I also know that mothers who work outside the home really don’t get downtime. We’re away from home and our children for nine plus hours a day, we shouldn’t be wishing for bedtime just so we can have a minute or seven all to ourselves, without someone leaning into us or laying on us or asking for ice cream or wanting a drink of water.

But I do want those minutes. I crave them.

Olivia, you see, has decided that going to sleep between 7:30 and 8:00 is for babies. And she’s also decided that she? She is not a baby, thank you very much. She’s a very mature six year old who knows when she’s tired and when she should go to bed.

Except she doesn’t. Know when she’s tired and should go to sleep, that is. She’s not mature enough to know that she needs more sleep than she’s been getting in the past couple of weeks. So, as her mother, for her own good, I’ve have to reinforce bedtime, reminding her that she has school the next day and she needs to sleep so she can get up and play before school each morning.

Yeah, that’s why I want her to go to bed. It’s for her own good. Sure.

Just because the added bonus of her going to bed by 8pm is that I get a little time to just be instead of ‘being’ mom for a while doesn’t mean I am not putting her first. No, not at all.

See, by the end of the day I’m done. I’m all given out. I can’t give another piece of me. I need to sit and watch mindless television (thank you Biggest Loser!) or read in bed by the light of a flashlight. I just need that time so I can do it all again.

And Livie, by pushing back her bedtime to 8:45 last week, is not only hurting herself, but she’s making her mother crazy. And that’s not got for anyone.

So the mean mom has to come stay for a while. Let’s call her Kate, shall we? She’s going to reign in all the roughhousing, the silliness, the child-led chaos that had taken over our house. She’s going to bring calm and organization to our home, a sense of peace and love that lets the girls know how cherished they are while reminding them that there are rules and those rules exist for a reason.

I’ll let you know how it all works out. Wish Kate luck.