#76: "go the fuck to sleep"

Let the record show that I'm writing this at 11:27pm. It's not my favorite time to be writing, and in this case while inspiration has found its way to the surface of my brain, it's the last thing I should be doing.

I should totally be sleeping. I bet most of you are (or were, since you'll read this later).

It wasn't that long ago that I was just getting warmed up by 11:30 at night. Sundays at Starlite back in the day used to cruise right on past this hour and stay up as late as they could. Nights in grad school ended when they had to, which on a few rare occasions was never. Now that I live in the city that never sleeps I feel that I didn't take advantage of it - I've never closed a bar here at 4am (and I still kinda want to). 

I'm still more of a night owl, though. Waking up has never been my cup of tea, and no matter the time or the method I am not pleasant to roust from bed. Most mornings these days I sincerely hope that Fred will stay quiet and/or go back to sleep for just a few moments, and then once I do make it to his room I flop into the glider and try my hardest to not get back up. Yet sitting here to all hours is not one bit abnormal for me; I somehow function on about six hours of sleep per day.

I never remember Fred being a difficult sleeper. I'm sure he was at first, but I've blocked out those memories it seems. I know that just a few months after he was born fall descended, followed quickly by winter. We have lots of things to keep baby warm and cozy that helps put them to sleep. There are Merlin suits, swaddlers, and in a pinch you just wrap them up in a blanket into a burrito shape and hope food sleeps. I just seem to remember that he was easy - fill him up with milk, get him to burp, count to ten while he passes out.

I guess you could say we got lucky with that one. Even though he's graduated to having books read to him and The Beatles before bed, he still crashes pretty easily and sleeps all night. The other dude, however, is proving to be much more the challenge.

Tonight it took us a solid two hours to get Ben to go to sleep. I'm pretty sure that I told him to both "shut up" and to "go the fuck to sleep, child." I try not to curse at the children lest they repeat it, but he's tiny and won't remember that I called him all manner of names when he wouldn't pass out. I'm thinking that I'll start making his bedtime playlist as soon as I can get a read on what might soothe him.

For right now, though, it only includes variations on a theme - done by such luminaries (no pun intended) as Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Garner, LeVar Burton, Werner Herzog, and someone's great grandmother that can't read a page without losing her shit.