Sunday, August 10, 2008

Things to do at 3 am...

......when you can't sleep.

1) Change positions with abrupt, exaggerated movements. If you can't sleep neither should your spouse. Saying "humph" about every 5 minutes really gets your point across.

2) Flip your mattress so that you will be sleeping on the most comfortable side. Make sure you let your spouse know before you flip so that they don't end up on the floor (unless you don't like them).

3) Count backwards from 768.

4) Reminisce about things that happened in the past. Like the time you and your friends were in high school and were acting goofy outside when you thought no one was listening. Then you noticed that a window was open to a classroom full of students. So you all started running and laughing and one of your friends fell down the stairs and broke her ankle. Good times!

5) Recount old discussions and wish you had said something you didn't.
6) Recount old discussions and wish you hadn't said something you did.

7) Wish for a nicer house.

8) Wish for a great career (that doesn't involve screaming, biting babies).

9) Think about how much you love your family and that you wouldn't trade them for the world (except for the screaming and the biting) (and the running away and the playing with things that are not allowed).

10) Practice your fire/tornado drill. In your head that is. Waking the kids and screaming "there's a fire, get out" would not help you in the sleep department.
11) If your spouse is not yet awake, give them a couple good kicks, just for fun.

12) Start next year's income tax. Yeah, right.

13) Clean the house. Yeah, right.

14) Read a book, or better yet catch up on blog reading.

15) Surf the net and try to diagnose all your health concerns. Then email your doctor about all the things that are wrong with you. Trust me, he/she already knows what is wrong with you, they are just too nice to tell you.
16) Count sheep. Or if you have enough light, you can count the cracks in the ceiling.

17) I've heard people (my mom) say if you can't sleep you should tell every part of your body to relax, one by one. My brain is so dysfunctional that when I've tried this, I start with my toes and by the time I reach my knees I'm thinking "what should I make for lunch tomorrow?" "I think I've got some ham, maybe I could make potato soup" "with fresh beans from the garden" "and I should make some homemade bread". By that point I'm hungry so I go check out the fridge.

18) Sing songs in your head. Just don't sing out loud. To you it may sound like an endearing lullaby but your sleeping spouse probably won't agree.

19) My second most favorite thing to do at 3 am is update my blog, which I didn't actually do on here until now, but I did have a list started in my head last night when I couldn't sleep.

20) My most favorite thing to do when I can't sleep is to stare at my beautiful, sleeping babies.

3 comments:

MaryBeth said...

Ooooh, you are a brave woman to take photos of sleeping children. Even with insomnia (and I can sympathize) I don't think I'd try to snap a picture of the girls for fear of waking one or more of them up!!

Dorinda said...

Can I add to the list?

Wonder if your novel will ever really see the light of day or if you're crazy for trying to write 90,000 words all together in a coherent plot.

Wonder if everyone who told you had good writing were lying to you and when they'll stop doing it and tell you the awful truth.

At least this is what I was thinking in the middle of the night on Thursday :)

Great post - cute pictures. I LOVE sleeping babies. I got home late last night so everyone was in bed and I had to go look in on them - soooo cute - I could just eat them up!!

Write you soon...

Elizabeth said...

Hi, I don't know if you remember me, but Mindy Kindt had given me your blog back in June. I had forgotten about it until just now! I was scanning and I have to say... I can't believe there will be nights in my future where I am looking for something to do at 3 am! There is hope for the future. :) Yay! Thanks for blogging about your triplets. I am enjoying mine a lot. Hopefully I'll have a little time to learn from you guys on here.