Sleep, It's a Thing | DH - A Social Misfit

This photo from a camping trip explains my mornings perfectly 😂. I hate going to sleep but once I’m asleep, I have a hard time waking up. My sweet kiddo has always been a morning person, even before she was born. Now that I get to be my “own human” my natural schedule seems to be up until 3 am and asleep until 11 am. I need multiple alarms to get up at a scheduled time. Like Alexa set at high volume plus my phone… on repeat and across the room from me or I’ll sleep through it.

Now, maybe this doesn’t sound too crazy. I know my limitations and I can tell you that if life is needed out of me before 9 am there are going to be some issues. It will also tell you how simply amazing my baby is – that girl had to deal with me 😆. She’s got skills. Mad skills. I love her so much 🥰.

There were a lot of years in there that involved a certain someone needing to get to school before 8 am. What’s the big deal you ask? Everyone has to deal with that right? Hmm. True. I don’t know how people handle it, it was very hard for me.

I’d be up until 1 or 3 and have to get up to get her to school. When she was in Kindergarten I was doing child care with my mom (she covered 1st shift and I covered 2nd shift). Many nights I’d be working until 1 am or later then have to drag us home. Sometimes this was a quick 10 minute country drive, other times this was a nightmare through snowstorms on unplowed country roads 😬…at least we weren’t walking without shoes right?! 😂

No matter how tired I was before heading for home, it was still hard to fall asleep right away after we arrived. It didn’t take long before I got a call from the school saying that there were going to be consequences if my kiddo didn’t start making it to school on time (there may be a few times I called her in for the day because we were really late, which maybe wouldn’t have been too horrible if I had called at a decent time 🤣) …. anyway, there was a magic number that equaled a truancy report and we had just about reached it. In Kindergarten. Simply unacceptable right?! Bad mum!

So, the situation definitely was not good. After pulling too many all nighters I decided it would be better if we just stayed overnight at my mums so she could wake my arse up in the morning and I did solve the late arrival issue that way.

I got better over time, but it took a while to get there. It never got easier and I was exhausted a lot. Also, I am SO thankful for school breakfasts. My zombified brain wasn’t good for much in the before school hours. I’d do my best to get whatever was needed for morning ready before finally crashing. I’d be aware enough of my alarms to wake the kiddo up to get ready for school and usually fall back asleep until it was time to leave the house.

Still not great but I did walk or drive her to school and pick her up after school almost every day of her school career, minus the couple years that we did homeschooling. Which I truly believe either helped even it out or just made a big difference in that I was always there. Idk.

Best thing ever – when she started college full time in 11th grade (the schedule was so much better, only a couple early mornings). Second best thing ever – 12th grade after she got her license and was able to drive herself when the weather meant she could use her lil toy car Mini Cooper. Third best thing ever – when she graduated college and high school in the same year and that means mum can sleep in till whenever I want 🤣. Okay, technically not true but I will never have to go back to 7 am mornings again. YES!

true story from an American Misfit, [she/her/hers/trying to be humanish, maybe]
xoxo
-DH