“Sleeping in”

Mornings in our home are fairly variable lately. If I’m scheduled to work, they could start as early as 5:45 AM. I generally roll out of bed, do a little stretch, wash up and throw on some scrubs. I distribute quick kisses to my adorable, warm and snuggly resting children and snoozing hubby, grab a granola bar and sneak out the door quietly. They are quick, efficient and predictable.

Mornings when I am off are quite different. On those days, I feel the strong need to emphasize my lack of sleep on work mornings and convince my husband to let me “sleep in,” to which he often graciously obliges. I write “sleep in” in quotations to highlight how much this act has changed for me over the years.

When I was in high school, college, even medical school – sleeping in meant really sleeping in. It meant waking up at 11 AM, noon or even later, after resting quietly and uninterruptedly in my bed. Looking back, I still can’t believe this was a possibility. Being tired is a relative feeling. At that time, I thought I was exhausted after hours of selfishly studying and going to class to further my knowledge base. I say selfishly as my only priority in life at that time was to complete my education in order to enter into my chosen career. At that time, I couldn’t even fathom how different “tired” might look in 10 years.

At present time, sleeping in looks much different. It generally involves a wake up call from one of my children who are seemingly less adorable when shoving their limbs in my side at 6:30 in the morning. The agreement in our home is that after the wake up call, the non-sleeping-in parent will then wake up to attend to the kids, and the other can go back to sleep. Going back to sleep on these mornings is glorious but comes with a package of random and unpredictable interruptions from those adorable children.

“Mommy, come see the fort I made in the hallway!”

“MOM, my sister is not sharing with me!”

“Mama, I love you. Are you waking up now to come play with me?”

My husband is generally great about telling them to give Mama some more sleeping time, but they are 3 and 5. Guidelines are still difficult to follow at this age. They understand to a degree, but they quickly forget. In additional, their concept of time is not yet complete. In their world, 10 minutes can look like 30 seconds.

This morning, sleeping in felt a little bit like a path to the finish line with multiple obstacles along the way. The end time of my “sleeping in” track was there, but it did require some stops to swirl around both verbal and physical wake up calls from my kids.

Regardless, I finally woke up both grateful of the extra rest time and for my decided final wake up call from my daughter. There she was looking at me, with big, excited blue eyes and cherry juice stains on her face from breakfast.

“Hi Mommy! Can you come see my fort now?”

I grabbed her close and requested a warm snuggle before she could unveil her morning creation. She agreed to the request and hugged me back, giggling and patting my growing belly. Baby #3 is in there. I forgot to mention that amidst my wake up calls from my air breathing children, my third baby was giving me light kicks to remind me that they too are present and perhaps ready to join in on these wake up calls. I imagine they will be a strong player in a few short months.

My daughter then leaned in to me. “I love you, Mama.” She smiled and gave me a quick kiss.

I don’t think I would like to change this new version of “sleeping in.” I imagine that one day, I will again be allowed the opportunity to really sleep in, college style – uninterrupted, without random wake up calls. I imagine I will then miss the feeling of having one of those adorable, warm children truly enthusiastic to just need me, to just be with me.

I’ll try to remember this when my son wants to use my body as a jungle gym at 7 AM on a Sunday off or when my daughter comes in every 5 minutes to see if I’m ready to wake up yet. One day they too may start really sleeping in. I’m sure this will come with a new set of hurdles and a different version of obstacles to get to the start of the day. For now, I’ll focus on the present and continue to fuel this new version of “tired” with those snuggles, I love yous and requests to get out of bed to see the latest fort creation.