Summer - the season of too little sleep
My husband is a teacher and my children are students, so all three of them look forward to having their summers free of school and free of school’s confining schedule. My husband works hard in the summers, either on our house or on friends’ houses, fixing, updating or creating. He gets to set his own hours and if he wants to stay up until 2am watching a great movie, he can do that. Who am I to deny him, since he’s the one who wakes us both up at 5:50am for nine months of the year?
My kids also look forward to summers so that they can stay up later - usually watching the TV shows they miss during the school year or, lately, using the computer to surf the web, chat with friends or play games. I’ve even caught my daughter on the phone at 11pm or later! I tell her that it is my opinion that it is impolite to ever call anyone past 9pm, unless it is an absolute emergency (again showing my victorian values or living in the 1900’s as Kris says). She says, “Why doesn’t it matter? My friend is up late, too!” Yes, the rest of the world lives in modern times and my kids are stuck with a mother from the 1900’s. (I think this post is turning into a different topic. Back to the post topic.) Anyway, my kids are trying to enjoy all those things that are limited during the school, either by me, school work or sports.
So where does that leave me? Very, very tired! I’ve always been the kind of mom who can’t fall asleep until my kids are asleep. Yes, I’m a control freak according to some people’s definitions. But they didn’t have my kids or know what my kids might do if mom fell asleep first. I look forward to the summers because of the longer days of sunshine, getting up when everyone else is asleep to enjoy my coffee, watch the news, water the garden, etc. That is hard to do if I don’t fall asleep until 12 or 1am.
My son is more difficult about getting to bed than my daughter. Some days I have built-in controls, like summer school classes, a 6am golf tee time or a morning hockey session, but the rest of the days I’m on my own. If I ask him to get to bed by 10pm, I often get the look - the sad, disappointed, dejected look of a kid who waited all year to stay up later in the summer and now I’m ruining his plans. I’m not controlled by the look, but I try to be reasonable. I want him to know that I’m flexible on some things, especially since I am not flexible about other things. He is good about getting to bed on Saturday night and getting up for church, so I do try to be reasonable on other nights.
Each summer, when the tiredness sets in and I start to complain about the unfair household sleep schedule, he’ll apologize and promise to get to bed earlier. Actually, that means that he’ll wait until I fall asleep to turn on the television. Or he will say, “Well, if you hadn’t quit teaching, you could live like us.” But I’m happy in the business world, being able to take a lunch or day off when I want to without ordering a sub, creating lesson plans and worrying about abandoning my class. Still, I do miss having a carefree summer. I dream about what it would be like…we could all go to work at a camp or travel for a month. That would be nice, but those things would only work if there was no television or computer to keep my husband and kids up late. I think I’d have the same battle no matter what job I had. In the meantime, I spend the mornings running down the office hall due to the jumbo (homemade)iced coffee with cream I need/enjoy each morning. At least I’m getting some exercise!
I hear you! Even though I’m able to be home most of the time, I find that I worry about the kids out at night. It’s good that our boys are working with their dad, so they have to get up by seven or so. Christina, on the other hand, is a different story…..
I hate to wish the summer away, but I’m never sad to see September roll around, with its daily schedules!