Sleep rarely eludes me. Once I decide to actually go to sleep, I fall asleep quickly. My troubles arise with staying asleep. Some of the origins are the “change of life” and others may be in that life has changed. I wake with leg cramps, prequels to leg cramps actually, below the knees. Both the shin and calf muscles can seize up, kicking the covers off is a fete, forget trying to stand. They are a mystery because I haven’t had a single cramp in the last three nights. I suspect I might be running in my dreams and so when I hit REM phase about three hours into the night, the cramps fling me out of bed.
I am a power napper but despite a long discourse with a friend over the definition of napping, I prefer an under the covers, pants off (bra off, too), lights out, A/C cranked down nap and it shouldn’t last through dinner because naps are for the time between lunch and dinner. Yesterday, I took a new variation of the nap. I added ear plugs and slept two hours. I woke with the remnants of a screen play worthy mash up with flavors of Game of Thrones and Battle Star Galactica. I think my subconscious needed a purging. Five hours later I went back to sleep effortlessly.
I was hard to sleep with as a child and whenever forced to share a bed with my older sister when visiting our Granny, we both complained the other kicked us all night long. While married, I slept in the same position and never moved all night. When I became a new mom, I became a very light sleeper, waking at the faintest sigh of my baby. I am still a light sleeper which explains the regular use of foam earplugs.
I think the biggest reason I have slept like a Queen these last three nights is that I had personal time to get chores and tasks completed that are difficult to finish when on my regular work schedule. Going to the bank and closing bank accounts and getting into safe deposit boxes is a “banking hours” chore. So is going to the local welding shop to talk to the welder that might be able to make the custom lettering for the house. Getting replacements for my make up at the department store and calling the State of Florida regarding a name change error all require daylight hours and no interruptions.
I also got to be simply Mommy, undivided in my attention to my oldest as he had braces put on. It is too commonplace to force ourselves to multitask. I sat in the orthodontists office and hand stitched on a quilt and waited. No iPod, MINIMAL texting to an office manager who loathes my absences from work and nothing but sweet mono-tasking. It’s important to give ourselves space to breathe and pause.