Rabbits & Foxes

I often think about my sleeping habits. They’re not great, as the title of this post clearly states. I go to bed very late every night, & because of my little bean’s school schedule, my internal clock has already adjusted itself to wake roughly around the same time every single morning, no matter what. My internal clock even wakes me up minutes before my actual alarm clock screams at me to get up.

Yeah, even when I get sick, my body will wake up at the same time due to it being conditioned to my little bean’s repetitive school routine. I can’t even get myself to sleep in on the weekends; not even on holidays, or on vacations. Fuck me.

I don’t mind waking up early in the morning. One of my favorite things to do is lounge in bed for a little while before I get the day going. I don’t even mind the fact that my body is so accustomed to a routine that I cannot get myself to sleep in, no matter how hard I try. The only thing that really bothers me, to the point of pissing me off (pun intended), is that my body doesn’t just wake up because of repetitive routine. It is mostly because my very, very full bladder is my alarm clock, & roars at me to get up & urinate.

No matter how hard I try to convince myself to wait a minute, then another minute more, all I can think about is how my bladder will either explode like an overfilled water balloon, or I’m going to eventually give myself some sort of urinary tract infection. I can’t concentrate on anything other than voiding my bladder. By the time I finally muster the motivation to get out of bed to urinate, time has slipped through my metaphorical fingers, & I begin to rush to get my daughter dressed, fed, & ready for school drop off.

The evenings are a different story. I don’t rush to get in bed at night. I take my time to prepare things for the next day, such as picking out my little bean’s school outfit, pre-packing her lunch & the things she will bring to school, pre-prepping all the ingredients for breakfast, or picking out what I’m going to wear the next day so I won’t waste time thinking about what to wear (I can just grab the outfit I set aside & put it on without thinking about it.).

After everyone has showered (we’re all nighttime bathers) & brushed our teeth, & my little bean has read a bedtime book, after I’ve helped my mother with any extra task or favor she’s asked of me, that’s when I begin my wind-down process. I take time to do all of my skincare steps, I brush my hair, then I set up all the things around my side of whichever bed I am sleeping on.

Let me clarify this by explaining what that means. Basically, my little bean is a co-dependent sleeper & needs a parent to sleep next to her. Jian & I swap co-sleeping roles every other night, & depending on the situation, we trade beds (sometimes one of us will sleep in her full-size bed alone, sometimes she will sleep in that bed with a parent). This is a routine we have all gotten used to. Jian & I get to share a bed on the weekends, when the little bean sleeps with her grandma (as a weekend treat). Grandma has no rules, so on the weekends the little bean will sometimes stay up until 1am watching random videos of raccoons eating trash food.

So, to get back on topic, after everyone else has been tucked in bed, that’s when it’s my time to properly shine relax. I put on my ear buds, watch a ton of Instagram reels before switching to YouTube shorts, play a couple rounds of whatever puzzle game I’m into at the moment, maybe color a few pictures from my color-by-numbers app, pinboard aspirational photos on Pinterest, then freak out about how late the time is. After all of that bullshit, I put down my phone, put away the ear buds that are starting to make my ears feel tender & sore, then try to fall asleep, all while trying to convince myself that I don’t have to pee one more time before sleeping. (That always fails, & I end up making a big fuss with myself just to unburden my bladder for the night.)

Oh, you thought I was done? No way, José, & that includes you all the way in the back row. I am still not done. What’s that old saying, “First one up, last one sleeping”? Or was it “First one in, last one out”? Either way, I am always the last person to sleep in my household. I am making sure everyone is taken care of before I ca truly fall sleep, & that mostly applies to my little bean. I make sure she is covered properly, that she’s got all of her favorite things to sleep with right next to her, & that she is fully asleep before I doze off.

So, this is where I end my post. I am going to sign off, take a whizz, then go to sleep at a relatively decent time for once. Cheers.

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