Nightowl
Pre-kbloggr never wants to go to bed. And why should he? When we come home from work we’re anxious to make up for lost time and fill the last two hours by dancing to Blitzkrieg Bop and play rousing games of tag though our apartment is so small someone always ends up stubbing their toe. When we finally do get up stairs there’s a round or two of hide and seek. He loves to sit on the third shelf of the linen closet with me while I suck in my stomach and practically knock over my semi-neat stacks of towels. I’ll admit its borderline scary, the anticipation of faterblogger finding us is usually too much to bear and our giggles give us away, but sometimes we totally freak him out by hiding behind a corner or a bed and my chest races from the excitement and worry that I’m sentencing my son to a nightmare. Two books later and three stories (that I tell him) he’s finally asleep. Still, its clear to me we’re raising a night owl. The desire to stay up late, to keep playing and not want to worry about time is a family trait I’m passing down to pre-kblogger like my brown eyes. Fatherblogger and I never want to go to bed. Heck, its 11:26 right now.
I’m not sleeping because like Conrad there’s so much more I want to do. Watch John Stewart. Blog. Write in Dashiell’s baby book. Write about everyone’s favorite part of the day. I stay up because there’s always more to do. In my perfect world, 9pm would last four hours so I could get everything I want to do done. But tonight when I was washing dishes and wondering if vacuuming would wake the kids I looked at the clock and was deflated to see the time: 10:36. I hate feeling restless before bed, What didn’t I do today? Write. Workout. Have Saturday night sex.
I believe evenings should have a feeling of satisfaction. But usually mine don’t. There’s always more to do, there will always be something left waiting. And it’s not even about the sleep I’m not getting, though I can see it in my face, especially under my eyes and I desperately need Dr. Hauschka Eye Solace (if I could take the ten minutes to do the treatment). It’s about feeling content with now. My problem is that when I go to sleep I’m always thinking about what I need or want to do next. I’ve always got one foot into tomorrow, which I guess means I’ve only got one foot into today. And that’s a family trait I don’t want to pass on to my kids.