Restful Sleep

First, shameless self promotion: my novel The Summer of France is only 99 cents on Kindle today, both in the U.S. and the U.K.
Here's a review that was posted yesterday on Amazon by someone who calls herself  "crazy for reading"

Loved this story! I stayed up till after midnight each night reading it after my family went to bed. So many twists and turns I didn't want to quit.

If you haven't read it, hope you'll give it a try.

Today, my family will gather again, five adults in our small house, for another week before my sons head off to college next week. (Grace is in and out since she has an apartment about 20 minutes away.)
But on the first night that I spent home alone since...forever maybe, I went to bed and did not wake  up for seven hours, until the cat jumped on me at 6 a.m.
Some people think that sleep is only disrupted while kids are babies, but I can tell you that teenagers disrupt sleep even more.

Here's Tucker in his portable hammock. He looks kind of bored.

In my house, someone is pretty much always awake and rambling around the house. They come in at different hours. They're searching for food at 3 in the morning. The television in the living room may be too loud. The floors squeak, the toilet flushes.
I cannot remember the last time that I went to sleep and was oblivious to everything until the next morning.
It was beautiful.
Of course, part of that restful sleep might have to do with the fact that I knew the boys were with their father camping, rather than on a college campus, where they might or might not find trouble. So I may not sleep so peacefully once they've moved to college.
I'd better enjoy them while I can!

Sleeping Giant

This morning, while I was gone on a run, Spencer got out of bed and went to a friend's house for some early morning yoga. He and this friend have been intensely lifting weights and they decided to add yoga to the routine.
He came home and showered, screeching out the door to get to school on time.
He lifted weights after school and just got home.
"How'd the yoga thing go this morning?" I asked. Spencer isn't exactly a morning person.
He explained how they do "downward dog" and "plank." They do balance poses like "tree." "I fell asleep in 7th period study hall," he said.
"Really?"
"Yeah. I woke up 7 minutes after school got out."
I can picture him with his head on the formica desk, drool dripping from the edge of his mouth.
"Your friends and the teacher left you there asleep?" Earl asked.
"Yeah. They said they tried to wake me up. Then they just left."
As I was writing this, I realized that Tucker shares a study hall with Spencer. I called down the stairs to him.
"Hey, Tuck. Did you leave Spencer asleep in study hall?" I asked.
"Well, Joe tried to wake him up," Tucker said.
"So you just left? What if he'd had a heart attack or something? He could have been unconscious," I protested.
"Mom, it was obvious he was asleep with his face in his book," Tucker explained.
Now my vision changed from him lying with his head turned sideways on the desk, to him face down in his Calculus book. I feel pretty certain that it was his Calc book because that's what he has homework in tonight.
I'm not sure what the teacher's reaction was. Did she try to wake him up or did she give a shrug and close the door behind her? He did give her a hard time when she told them to sit in assigned seats. She might have given a little smile as she walked out the door, leaving a slumbering, and no longer protesting, Spencer asleep.
At least they didn't lock the door.

Exercising for Energy

The other day when I was kvetching to my friend Ruth about how tired I was, she said, "Isn't exercise supposed to give you energy?"
That stopped me. If exercise gives me energy, then I should be a whirling dervish. Instead, I wake up tired, catch a 20-minute nap when the day allows and move like I share joints with the Tin Man on the Wizard of Oz.
Most exercise gives people extra energy, it's true. But not my kind of exercise. This summer, I decided to follow the marathon training schedule. That means I ran 10 miles on Saturday.
Creak, creak, creak -- those are my joints as I pull myself out of a chair.
Now, let me be clear, as I have to everyone who asks, including the 20-year-old guy at the running shoe store and the young lady at Starbucks, I do not plan to run the marathon this fall. Running the marathon was the most miserable I have ever been. But, I decided I wanted to get in good shape this summer, and training for the marathon seemed like the way to do it.
Maybe if I got up at 5:30 and ran 5 miles before going to work, like today, then I wouldn't be so exhausted.
Twing, twang, that's the achilles tendon in my left foot when I hobble down the stairs.
But after I ran, I did about a 45-minute core exercise from P90X. Grace and I have been doing this together all summer, but she wouldn't get out of bed this morning.
Jab, jab. That's the shooting pain from shin splints shooting up the front of my legs.
And somedays, when the heat index isn't 100, I might hop on my bike and ride the half hour to work in the morning and back again in the afternoon.
My goal is to get in really good shape. I don't weigh myself and stress about numbers. I determine if I look good and if my clothes fit well. I'm pumped about the number of miles I can run without collapsing or begging my friends to walk.
But maybe the exhaustion is not the fault of the exercising. Maybe I need to go to bed at 10 like I did during the school year. In bed at 10, up at 5:30 -- 7 and a half hours of sleep seems like a good amount.
Instead, most nights, I drag myself to bed around 11 after Tucker gets home and then when Grace or Spencer gets home they come in to kiss me goodnight and tell me about their evenings. Then I may wake up when Earl gets home from work at 12 or 12:30 or 1 a.m. and again when he comes to bed at 2 or 3 a.m.
Last night around 3:15, Spencer wandered into the bedroom and asked whether he could have a pillow because he fell asleep on the couch and didn't want to go to his bed. I woke up Earl and took his extra pillow. Then I felt guilty and got up to get Earl an extra pillow.
At 5:30 the alarm went off and I started over again.
So maybe, it's not exercise making me tired. Maybe it's lack of sleep.
How about you? Does exercising give you energy?

Snooze Quandry

I'm one of those moms who has always gotten her kids up for school. Well, let's face it, they've only been in school for three years, so it isn't that long of a tradition. Now that Grace is 18, ready to go off to college, and Earl and I are preparing to leave for vacation, I've been letting them set their alarms and get up.
Grace is very reliable at this. She sets her alarm, gets up and jumps in the shower first.
Tucker also is fairly prompt at rousing himself.
I came back from the Y this morning at 7 and he was in the shower.
Spencer is another story. This boy sleeps hard. He always has. When I was waking him up, it became a yelling thing nearly every day. I'd start gentle. I'd call his name, shake his shoulder, turn the light on, throw a cat onto his bed. He might open his eyes, he might respond, but he wouldn't actually get up. Then 10 minutes before we were leaving, I'd be shouting and he'd be shouting back.
"You're going to have to walk to school. You're going to be late," I'd warn. Somehow, he always manages to stick his head under the shower, brush his teeth and run out the door to the car.
Most of the time he doesn't have time for breakfast. If I were 6-foot, 3-inches and 150 pounds, I'd want breakfast. Sometimes he'll grab a granola bar.
Now that he's in charge of waking himself up, he sets his phone as an alarm.
"I hit snooze four times," he explains. That's his plan. To wake up and turn off the alarm four times.
I just don't get it. Wouldn't it be better to sleep straight through until the absolute last minute you have to get up? Why wake up 15 minutes early, hit snooze, then five minutes later, hit snooze.
See, I just don't understand the appeal of the snooze button. It doesn't seem logical.
Can anyone explain it?