Unwind Before Bedtime

Sometimes sleep becomes harder to achieve easily as we get older.   I’ve been fortunate so far in that it’s typically harder for me to stay awake than it is to go to sleep come bedtime but I know that’s not the case for many people.   My mother sent me a list of sleep behavior best practices today and when I read through it one of the tips caught my eye, because it’s basically my favorite time of the day each day.

It’s not that I don’t love getting up early in the morning to go for a run, or enjoy spending time with my children or savor eating a delicious dinner, because I like all those things (excepting that 5:15AM alarm), but there is one thing I look forward to each and every day—the last hour before I go to bed.

I’ve called it my, “wind down” time but I like the title they used in the list of, “unwind before bedtime” too.   My day goes something like this: get up, do day things, put the children to bed, do the things that need to get done after the children are asleep and then wind down.    It’s that last part of my day that’s sort of the reward for getting everything accomplished in the day.

Before I can start my end of night routine the children need to be asleep and I have to take care of my, “paperwork” or more correctly named today as, “electronic work”.   That involves handling emails and anything associated with it such as paying bills, filling out paperwork or surveys for school, scheduling sitters, coordinating calendars and of course, writing a blog post.    Once everything is done, then and only then can I go upstairs, run a hot bath and relax, saying a mental, “ahh” before getting into bed.

Sometimes I listen to an audio book.  Other times I do things on my iPad.  Commonly I do both at the same time, three things at the same time if you count that I do them while in the tub.   After I’m good and well relaxed, I get into bed and am almost sad that the day is over because once the lights are out (including the glowing light of my iPad), I can’t stay awake for more than a few minutes.

I’m glad I don’t have problems falling to sleep, at least at this point in my life.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has an ear infection.   He came downstairs last night and I gave him some Tylenol and this morning he went to the doctor’s for confirmation and some antibiotic.   In the bed last night he wanted to know if he could have a pretzel to put in his ear.   I think he thought he could make it feel better by employing a pretzel stick because a cotton swab might not be as helpful.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter wanted to confirm school was starting next week.   She got the red marker and went over to our calendar on the refrigerator so she could mark off yesterday and count the days until next Monday.   She sometimes does an X to mark off the day, sometimes she does an asterisk pattern and then other times—and I’m not sure why she does this—she marks off completed days by drawing a banana.