Tales from an Overactive Brain at 2 A.M.

Last week, Phillip started yelling in the middle of the night. That's not really normal, so I rolled over and woke him up.

"What was that?" I asked.

"It was a nightmare."

Obviously.

"About what?"

He explained that in his dream, he was on a bus and looked out the window just in time to see a creepy figure running toward him.

"It looked sort of like one of those vampire things in that Will Smith movie," Phillip said.

There was a pause.

"And unfortunately," he continued, "when you woke me up you looked like one of them, so that was pretty scary, too."

With an apology for waking me up in such a disturbing way (and, I'd like to think, for comparing me to a nocturnal vampire mutant,) he rolled over and went to sleep, leaving me to ponder the random things my brain ponders when it gets woken up in the middle of the night.

A transcript of my inner dialogue for the next 45 minutes is as follows:

Okay, that was weird, but it's time to go back to sleep now.

...What was the name of that movie, anyway?

I Am Hero?

Maybe I should Google it. No, blue light is bad for sleep.

What happened in that movie, anyway? I saw it in the theater and literally the only thing I remember was that gas cost like $15 a gallon.

Seriously, I remember nothing about that movie. Not even what the vampires looked like.

Maybe I should Google it.

I Am Legend. That was the name. You can't have me today, early onset dementia.

Remember when Will Smith was the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air?

I miss those days.

Iiiiiin West Philadelphia, born and raised! On the playground was where I spent most of my days...

[full disclosure: I actually went through all the lyrics, but that's okay because you're already singing it now and we both know you know every word.]

Why can I remember every word to that song when I haven't heard it in 20 years? Brains are weird.

Will Smith used to do fun stuff like Men in Black.

Hey, I wonder if my kids would like Men in Black.

What was that movie rated, anyway? Every time I try to show the kids a movie I liked when I was young, it turns out to be wildly inappropriate.

Okay, it's really time to get some sleep.

Find a comfortable position, relax.

Let's try counting down from 100 slowly.

100...

99...

98...

97...

Hey, remember that scene in Titanic where everyone knows they're about to die so that mom spends her last minutes tucking in her kids and reading them a bedtime story?

Oh my gosh, why would I think about that right now?!

100...

99...

And the old couple that holds hands and lies down together waiting to drown?

AAAGH, stop!

Seriously, though, what would I do if Phillip died?

I'd have to sell the house. Ugh, moving.

I couldn't take all his stuff with me. That would be sad.

I'd probably want to keep some of his shirts for sentimental reasons. Probably the green one he wears to go running...

Okay, this is not helpful.

Breathe slowly.

Inhale.

Exhale.

I wonder what time it is.

It's kind of light out but I think that's coming from the moon.

I'm not sold on this not-having-a-clock-in-the-bedroom thing. It's annoying. My phone is way over there.

Wow, there are a lot of weird noises in our house at night.

Is that a toilet flushing? Again? We have got to stop letting the kids drink anything after dinner.

Now the baby is stirring.

Okay, he's back asleep.

How do people move their babies in with their siblings? He's the noisiest sleeper ever. He'd wake them up all night.

He's going to be in a Pack n Play in our room forever. I wonder what the weight limit is on those things...


I think it was some time around this point that I began to fall back asleep. I envy people who can just flip a switch and conk out when they're tired. Maybe their brains aren't conspiring against them the way mine likes to.

As it is, I'm going to feel like a zombie tomorrow. Or maybe those things in I Am Legend, which I need to Google first thing in the morning to look for a resemblance, anyway.

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Staying Up Late Is My Kryptonite

I've been a night owl all my life. Everyone who's ever shared a living space with me, from my college roommates to my husband, have all marveled at how little sleep I need to function.

Sure, it comes in handy when I'm writing to a deadline or a baby is teething, but on ordinary days I still want to stay up late doing something, anything besides sleeping.

Quitting whatever I'm doing and heading to bed feels like walking The Green Mile. I might as well brush my teeth to a funeral dirge.

According to this Business Insider article, that makes me a sleep procrastinator.

I think normal people actually want to snuggle up in the covers at the end of a long day and spend the next 6-8 hours comatose in bed. To them, it sounds luxurious and delightfully cozy.

To me it sounds like something for which science should be desperately seeking a cure. Like polio, or smallpox. Why are we not organizing 5k's for this?

Whether I like it or not, though, humans currently need to sleep every night, and I'm trying to work with it. All my adult life I've been trying to get to bed on time.

I've tried recording in a notebook what time I went to bed every night.

I've tried setting a bedtime alarm on my phone.

I've even tried to create some accountability for myself by doing a nightly check-in on the blog's Facebook page.

And nothing has worked.

I abandoned the notebook when it quickly became more depressing than helpful. When my phone goes off every night, I say rude things to it and then ignore it until it silences itself. Facebook doesn't care if I stay up until 2 AM.

I've improved over time, but only because I'm getting older, and I feel as tired now after 6 hours of sleep as I once did after 4. On paper it might look like I'm mending my ways as time goes on, but I'm the same level of tired as ever.

It sounds like a simple self-control problem, but I don't think that's the whole story. I've overcome bad habits before.

As a kid, I regularly bit my nails so far down I used to wrap my fingertips in band-aids to ease the throbbing. You'd never know it today though, because I haven't chewed a fingernail in years.

Over the summer I noticed I was eating too much junk food and decided to just stop for a month. I turned down dessert, walked by the refreshment table without a second thought, and didn't have so much as an M&M for 30 days. It wasn't even that hard.

I'm no stranger to self-control in almost every other area of my life, except for this one.

This post probably makes no sense to most people, who love going to bed. What are you complaining about? They're saying to their computers right now in exasperation. If you hate sleeping so much, then just stay up!

But let me ask you something: Do you enjoy cleaning your toilet? Then why do you do it?

Sleeping isn't something I get to do, it's something I have to do, and to me it's every bit as unpleasant a chore as scrubbing the commode in the kids' bathroom. Actually, I would gladly stay up to do it if it meant putting off bedtime for another 15 minutes.

Staying up late is no doubt my worst habit. But how do you break a habit when doing the right thing is less appealing than the toilet bowl brush?

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7 Things That Go Out the Window When You Have a Baby

There's a reason why the first few months after bringing home a new baby are called "survival mode." Every ounce of energy you can muster is directed toward just trying to keep yourself and your newborn alive.

It's a little disorienting to go from a functional adult to someone who can barely (and I mean barely) keep up with her own hygeine, but hopefully this little guide will help you make the transition.

Things that will go completely out the window when you have a baby include:

Hair maintenance. Of course your own hair will go unwashed and unbrushed for days. You'll fall asleep in a ratty ponytail and before you know it, it's Friday and the thing is still in your hair. Sort of. The same applies to your older children. No need to announce the birth to anyone who works at your kids' school: they've your son rolling in with his bed head and your daughter's three-day-old pigtails. They know.

The distinction between pajamas and clothes. A long time ago, in a land far, far away, you'll vaguely remember that every morning you used to take off whatever you slept in and put on a pair of real pants with a numerical size. Currently, you wear the same thing 24 hours a day, and it's your elastic waist size 'L' pants from Target and a college T-shirt that at one point belonged to your husband. If it's any consolation, you have little concept of night and day right now, anyway.

Any sort of schedule. Structured days with set mealtimes, nap times, and waking times will (probably) happen when your baby gets older. But for now, you must cater to every whim of an insane dictator who wants to eat for 3 hours straight in the middle of the night and then nap in 11-minute increments, but only if you bounce him gently while pacing in a counter-clockwise direction and humming "Tiny Dancer." And that goes for your own schedule, too. You no longer eat when you're hungry or sleep at bedtime: you do it whenever the baby lets you.

Basic housekeeping. Thank goodness for that urge to clean every inch of the house toward the end of your pregnancy, because it's certainly not going to get done any time soon. There are unidentifiable contents in the back of the fridge that make you genuinely feel afraid. A load of clothes is growing mildew in the washer. Your kitchen table looks like a meth lab buried under two weeks' worth of mail. Basically, your housekeeping regime is reduced to wiping spit-up off the floor and spraying Febreeze around once in a while.

A belief in moderation. All the TV you watched in your entire pre-pregnancy life does not equal the time you spend sitting in front of a screen for the first few months, endlessly nursing your newborn. And you really couldn't care less. You eat dinner out of a box or order take-out every night for a week and not once do you bemoan the loss of your once-balanced diet. Your older children are more than happy to survive on Ramen and hot dogs for a month.

Caring about your appearance. Inevitably, some helpful visitor or family member will tell you that you've got spit-up on your shoulder, as if this is new information to you. Of course you know perfectly well it's there. You're just too tired and too busy to do anything about it, and most of all, you know you'll get a similar christening on the other shoulder in T minus 15 minutes and who needs more laundry? Not you.

Every sleep theory you ever had about babies. When you were still pregnant, it was shockingly easy to declare that you were never going to let your baby nurse to sleep or use a pacifier, or get used to sleeping in your arms, or become dependent on swaddling. Spoiler alert: everyone plans to put the baby down awake but drowsy and let them self-soothe. After 20 hours of hysterical screaming every time the baby's downy head touches the mattress, you'll do literally anything to get some sleep and reality happens.


How long will survival mode last? Well, it gets easier after the first 2-3 months, but symptoms could last for up to a year or more.

The good news is that you eventually emerge from survival mode, and that precious time with your baby has taught you something, too: nice-looking hair and real pants are overrated.

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Super-Helpful Things My Brain Does at 3 in the Morning

With a gasp, I wake up in the middle of the night to a little person whisper-shouting five inches from my face: "I had a bad dream!"

Tucking them back in bed doesn't take long, but it takes long enough that I can't sleep once my head hits my own pillow again.

So my brain, knowing I'm really tired and have a busy day tomorrow, does some super-helpful things to get me to relax, like:

1. Calculating the hours and minutes of sleep I'll still get if I fall asleep right now. It does this every 7-10 minutes.

2. Thinking about a disturbing news story I heard earlier that day. Especially if it involved an abused or neglected child/animal/old person.

3. Going over an unpleasant conversation from the past, and spending 30 minutes reconstructing what I should have said.

4. Trying to remember if I locked the door, turned off the oven, or moved the laundry into the dryer.

5. Wondering what I would do if a burglar broke in right now.

6. Thinking about my husband dying. And trying not to wake him with my heaving sobs.

7. Thinking about one of my kids being diagnosed with a terminal illness. And trying not to wake my husband with my heaving sobs.

8. Mentally debating a fictitious person who disagrees with me on a social issue I'm passionate about.

9. Planning the logistics for an upcoming event like a big party or family vacation, assuming the worst-case scenario whenever possible.

10. Replaying something stupid I did between today and 20 years ago.

11. Listening very carefully to all the weird noises the house makes and wondering what they could be.

12. Pondering whether I should get up to pee. I mean, how badly do I really have to go? Is it worth it?

13. Debating whether I should get something to eat. Worrying burns a lot of calories and by now I'm kind of hungry.

14. Thinking about a scary movie, book, or campfire story. The one about the girl hearing the drip-drip noise in the night and reaching down to have her dog lick her hand for reassurance scares me way more as a 35-year-old woman than it did as a third-grader.

15. Convincing me to go check my email for "just a second." I'm totally creeped out now, I might as well.

16. Trying to remember when I'm due for regular appointments like dental cleanings, pediatrician visits, and oil changes. (If I finish thinking about that, I can always worry that I've let my driver's license or passport expire.)

17.  Taking a recurring expense like the kids' piano lessons and figuring out how much I spend on it over a month, a year, or decade. So fun!

18. Listing everything I need to do tomorrow. Getting up and writing it down might really wake me up, so I'll just lie here and keep obsessing about it so I don't forget anything.

If I've done all that and I'm still not sleeping, my ever-helpful brain doesn't get discouraged. It just reminds me that it's never too early to start stressing out about Christmas.

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A Mother's Love Letter to St. Patrick's Day

Dear St. Patrick's Day,

You're again right around the corner and I just want to tell you candidly that I love you.

I'm not sure that I've ever professed my real feelings for you so publicly before, and I can't stand another year of you not knowing how much you mean to me.

This time of year, most of us are still slogging through slush and snow to pick up our kids at school. We're going stir-crazy and yelling too much.

You know, St. Patrick's Day, that we moms been through a lot in the past few months. Your close cousins, Christmas and New Years, haven't been altogether kind to us.

We spent the darkest months of the year baking cookies and shopping and staying up late addressing cards and planning parties and doing more shopping and then wrapping it all, while our kids were home from school bouncing off the walls and each other due to cabin fever and binging on sugar (our fault) and new toys (mostly our fault, too.)

Of course our intent was to simplify this year, but you know how it goes.

Once our kids returned to school we took down the Christmas tree and began to put our houses and our lives back together, only to be hit with the one-two punch of Valentine's Day.

For mothers, Valentine's Day means hours of supervising the addressing of class valentines by your kids, which is the elementary school equivalent of wiping a toddler's nose for hours over three to five consecutive afternoons.

But then it's over.

It's over, and the sun comes out, because I know that the next big thing to come around, beautiful St. Patrick's Day, is you.

You. With little to no expectations of me.

You. With no elaborate fantastical creatures on a shelf that I need to position in a creative new way every night for an eternity (we don't do this, by the way, we just feel guilty about it.)

You, who require no gifts to be bought, no celebrations to be planned, and no cards to be purchased, made, or signed.

You're everything a holiday should be.

I can finally be "the fun mom," and all I have to do is put a few drops of green coloring into the kids' breakfast in the morning.

My only real responsibility on March 17th is to remind everyone to wear something green, and even that's kind of optional.

I kiss the kids goodbye, they go do some shamrock projects at school, and we're done celebrating the best holiday of the whole year. Maybe we go see a St. Patrick's Day parade. Or maybe we stay home and go to bed early, and no one cares.

You get me, St. Patrick's Day. You really do. I can't wait to see you again.

Love,
A Mother

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A Tour of the First Trimester of Pregnancy

I lie in bed with one arm dangling off the side, face smashed against the mattress, wondering what time it is. Or even what day or year it is.

I'm exhausted. I'm starving. I want bacon.

Actually, that's disgusting. I'm so nauseous. I will never think about bacon again for as long as I live.

It's all coming back to me now... it's Tuesday, and today I'm 9 weeks pregnant. And I'm definitely about to vomit.

Welcome to the first trimester of pregnancy. Nobody can deny how incredible it is. Over the next three months, your baby will grow to 50 times its original size. It's a miracle, all right, but it's also gross, irrational, zombifying, and nauseating.

Allow me to take you on a little tour (don't worry, you still can use your copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting to bludgeon people who suggest you're acting "a little hormonal.")

First, you can forget about getting anything done. You'll be too tired and sick to even stay on top of basic hygiene, letalone reorganizing the basement. Do yourself a favor and throw away your to-do list, replacing it with a single Post-It note that says, "Don't die." You can stick it to the lid of the toilet so you'll be sure to see it every day while you're willing yourself to just throw up already.

Ordinary smells will suddenly bring you to your knees. A block of cheddar cheese might as well be kryptonite from the way it makes you recoil in horror begging someone, anyone, to take it far away from you. Preferably stored in a sealed container and buried in the backyard.

Grocery shopping turns from a routine chore into one long manic-depressive episode. One second you'll want to devour everything in the aisle immediately, and the next you'll be dry heaving because you saw a can of creamed corn. (Which, by the way, sounds delicious by the time you reach check-out.)

You can fall asleep any place, any time. You'll walk into rooms and forget why you're there. You'll lose 50% of your vocabulary and become extremely annoyed when people are too stupid to understand when you ask them to "bring me the, the... the thing."

Emotions go completely haywire, and finding that your husband has been eating the tortillas you were craving for lunch will make you seriously contemplate driving to his office to strangle him with the empty bag. The combination of your uncapped crazy and your pimply new T-zone will actually be like going through the teenage years all over again.

Except this time you're also bloated.

But in between the exhaustion, the nausea, and the epic mood swings, you really will be blown away by what's actually happening inside your body.

Someday the tiny little person you're growing will have interests and talents and friends and feelings and will sit at your kitchen table discussing politics and college admissions with you — all in the time it takes for you to blink.

Yes, pregnancy is the hardest miracle you'll ever experience. And I'm being both sarcastic and completely serious when I say, "Aren't we lucky?"

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Just Go to Sleep, Stupid!

If you've been reading this blog, you probably know that I feel a little unqualified to be writing about the importance of getting a decent night's rest.

And when I say "a little unqualified," I mean like Norman Bates authoring self-help books for people who have trouble setting appropriate boundaries with their mothers.

In fact, I'm probably the worst person ever to be writing this. You know the way a vampire recoils and shields his eyes against the sunrise, right before he bursts into flames? That's pretty much me, but with going to bed.

The story of my life can be summed up here and here, or with the following flow chart.

I'm like a yo-yo dieter, except with sleep.

Part of the problem is that there's not exactly a direct correlation between how I feel and how much sleep I get. If I don't sleep much one night, I won't necessarily feel like garbage the next morning.

But when sleep deprivation becomes a night-after-night occurrence, I can't escape the effects.

I lose all semblance of patience. I can't deal with noise (not a good situation for a mom to 5 kids under 11.) My brain can't access my vocabulary and I end up saying, "After you eat your cereal, remember to clean up your, your... thing." (The word you're looking for is bowl, lady. It's a bowl.)

Even though chronic exhaustion turns me into an idiot savant without the 'savant' part, do I respond by going to bed earlier the next night so I can catch up on my sleep?

No, I do not.

I stay up even later, usually under the guise of doing something productive. But really, the things I'm doing from 10 P.M. to midnight when I'm tired could usually get done in about 20-30 minutes during the day when I'm more awake and alert.

Sometimes, though, I'm not even doing anything: I'm just staying up because I'm too tired to brush my teeth and put on some pajamas. I'm not even making this stuff up. This is what it's like to be me.

So I'm going to do something that I can do because I have a blog, and I'm going to create some accountability for myself. This week is National Simplify Your Life Week, and I'm going to bed at 10 every night to celebrate. 

Who's with me??

Every night at 9:30 EST I'll be hosting a bedtime check-in on the Unremarkable Files Facebook page. Join me, or send this post to a friend who needs accountability as badly as I do! Share your bedtime goals, write a quick "I'm going to bed now!" post (whenever that may be for you,) or tell me about your favorite tips and tricks to get yourself to sleep at night.

I look forward to reading them just before I turn out the lights.

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Inside the Head of a Night Owl

I'm no cartoonist. Actually, that's an understatement. 

Once when he was a toddler, my son asked me to draw a train for him and what I drew was so bad he started crying and wailing: "That's not a train! That's a pig car!"

Nevertheless, I know that not everyone out there is a night owl like me so I wanted to give them a little glimpse into what we're thinking. Every single night.

Can you relate??

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50 Reasons Why My Kids Aren't in Bed Right Now

Eight o'clock, bedtime for our four oldest children.

We give hugs, sing songs, and read stories. We close the door, and after calming down the toddler because we forgot to leave it open a crack, quietly tiptoe downstairs.

Three, two, one... and the first little person wanders out of their room with a plaintive "Mooooom..."

Over the next 45 minutes, our house will become the prairie dog habitat at the zoo as all 4 kids take turns popping their heads out of their bedroom doors with various excuses why they can't sleep. Such as:

1. I have a hangnail.
2. There's a bump on my tongue.
3. I'm scared of the snow monster in Frozen.
4. I can't find my other slipper.
5. The blanket is tangled up.
6. I need lotion on my hands.
7. I need a drink.
8. I forgot to brush my teeth.
9. I just remembered that my shoebox diorama of an ocean habitat is due tomorrow.
10. I'm hot.
11. I'm cold.
12. I need another drink.
13. I'm suddenly very sad about my pet hamster that died 9 months ago.
14. What are we having for breakfast in the morning?
15. My foot hurts.
16. My stomach hurts.
17. Nothing hurts, I just don't feel good in general.
18. I need a different blanket.
19. I'm tired.
20. My lips are chapped.
21. My pillow smells.
22. My pillow is too lumpy.
23. Now my pillow is lost.
24. I need to go potty.
25. And get another drink.
26. I fell out of bed and hurt my elbow.
27. What does "intercourse" mean?
28. It's dark in here.
29. My sister is singing.
30. Now she's humming.
31. What will the weather be like tomorrow?
32. I don't like these pajamas.
33. I heard a car honk its horn outside.
34. There's a mosquito in here!
35. I learned a funny joke at school.
36. What happens after you die?
37. I have the hiccups.
38. The mosquito's back.
39. I didn't get to say goodnight to you.
40. I need to go potty again. Number two this time!
41. I forgot to get a drink when I went potty.
42. I can hear you watching TV down there.
43. What time is it?
44. How many days until my birthday?
45. When do you guys go to bed? Why do you get to stay up later than me?
46. I want to sleep on the floor.
47. My side hurts when I breathe.
48. Promise you won't let anyone touch my Lego city while I'm at school tomorrow.
49. I have a wiggly tooth.
50. I really, really need a drink!

Someday science will uncover the reason why all children realize that they're dying of thirst the moment they lie down in bed, but not tonight.

Tonight we'll just ride out the requests for a third, fourth, and fifth drink of water, and hope that at some point, they give up and go to sleep. They'll need some quiet time to generate excuses for tomorrow, won't they?

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The 7 Habits of Highly Dysfunctional People

Recently someone mentioned The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, and while they were talking I was thinking, "It would be great if I could write a book like that, but I don't really have the expertise."

So I figured I'd take the advice of my high school English teacher and write what I know. 

Today I started working on a draft for a new book called The 7 Habits of Highly Dysfunctional People, where I share all my tried-and-true tips for making your life as difficult as possible.

Here's a sneak peek of my outline, for those who are interested:

1. Don't get enough sleep. I can't emphasize enough how important this is. If you're serious about dysfunction, being perpetually tired is the linchpin to this entire system. Tired people have trouble concentrating on tasks, feeling happy, and making good decisions.

If you feel like going to bed at around 9 or 10 PM, don't give in. Push past the exhaustion, and after 30 minutes or so you'll get a second wind that will carry you well past midnight.

2. Take care of the least important stuff first. Make sure you spend the most critical hours of your day cleaning your house, crossing minor items off your to-do list, and browsing aimlessly on Facebook so you run out of time to pray, read your scriptures, or spend time with your family.

If you have children at home, a good way to judge your success is by counting the number of times a day you say "Just a minute, Mommy's busy."

3. Pretend not to know your limitations. Regardless of how much you think you can actually handle, say "yes" to everything you think you should say yes to. Overcommit and overschedule, then feel like a failure when you drop the ball.

During this process, it's important to appear to have everything absolutely under control. If this proves difficult, just keep smiling until you're alone and then you can lock yourself in the bathroom and scream.

4. Only think about yourself. Helping others tends to put your own problems in perspective, so avoid it whenever you can. A proper perspective will only impede your goal of becoming completely dysfunctional.

Don't get out and do stuff for other people. Better yet, try not to get out at all — even if it's only a trip to the post office, fresh air often has the undesirable side effect of making you feel rejuvenated.

5. Keep extremely busy at all times. Downtime either leads to relaxation or healthy introspection. By constantly keeping busy, you'll avoid both of these pitfalls. You'll also elevate your anxiety level, which could possibly contribute to insomnia (see Habit #1!)

Once you've mastered the art of working hard and never taking a break, take your dysfunction to the next level by spending time each day feeling guilty because you're no fun to be around.

6. Always be mentally elsewhere. Living in the moment, or "stopping to smell the roses," is a slippery slope leading to contentment and stability. Part of the art of dysfunction is always keeping yourself distracted.

For example, when your kids are telling you about their day, only listen partway while you're doing something unimportant like going through the spam folder in your inbox. Also, text as much as possible when in the company of others so as to avoid meaningful interaction with them.

7. Compare yourself to others often. Lower self-esteem is proven to help you become more dysfunctional, so identify your strengths and then compare yourself to someone who's way better at them.

Better yet, compare yourself to someone who excels at something you really stink at. If you don't know where to start, try Pinterest.

* * *

Assuming my pitch for this book is successful when I start visiting publishers (and I don't see how it couldn't be,) I'm planning on following it up with a sequel, Embracing the Guilt Within: A Mother's Guide.

Feel free to leave a comment with any ideas you'd like to see included in the book!

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