Friday, November 27, 2009

Precious Sleep

I had one of those nights on Thanksgiving Eve.

With an empty house (Scott & Ellie are spending the holiday weekend with my inlaws), I tend to stay up too late anyway, so it was almost midnight when I finally made it into bed.

And I don't know if it was the absence of my family (and especially my husband's breathing) that I missed, or the extra yowly cat who's been complaining about the absence of the munchkin, or that I'm a bit flared or what. But I just couldn't sleep. 

First I tried my headache meds since that seemed like the most obvious culprit of why I couldn't sleep. That helped mellow my headache some, which made me notice all the other aches and pains. There was just no finding a position to lie in that didn't make some part of my body complain. So I took a pain pill.

At 3 a.m., I gave in and took an Ambien, figuring no one would care if I slept until late afternoon. At 4:30 a.m., I gave up and got out of bed and went downstairs to read. Kept the computer and the TV off since I've read that looking at a flickering screen makes it harder to fall asleep.

I put a load of laundry in the washer. I ran the dishwasher. I read a light novel. No dice.

I discovered that apparently newspapers get delivered later on holidays than normal weekdays, fetching the paper in at 6:45 a.m.

Then I was hungry, so I had leftover pizza for snack/breakfast. And finally made it to sleep around 8 a.m. Thursday. 

It left me happy that I had chosen to stay home alone. A sleepless night in a hotel room with a sleeping child and husband is way worse than a sleepless night in a house where I can get out of bed and not be disturbing anyone. 

And Thanksgiving Day turned out to be a perfect day for sleeping during "daylight" hours because it was such a gray day that sunlight didn't wake me before I was ready. And I was grateful that there was no one expecting me for a holiday meal or waiting for me to get up. (Ellie likes to roust me, and will sneak upstairs to do that if Scott isn't paying enough attention to her.)

I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving!


2 comments:

SharonMV said...

I've been dealing with this too! Just one night where I was up till 5am. Wed. night I was up till 7, but then managed to sleep until 10. Two nights before that I was up till 6am, then had to get up to get ready for a Dr appointment. Hope this trend is on the way out for both of us. Glad you got to sleep in on yesterday. Hope you get a chance for a little celebration when Scott & Ellie come home. and plenty of rest until then.

Sharon

Aviva said...

Thank you, Sharon!!

I'm sorry you've been going through this too, though. Like you said, I hope this trend is on the way out for both of us!!

Hang in there!