On Call

A mom's work day may end when the kids finally are asleep in bed, but in reality, she's on call 24/7. From the time you push that baby into the world until they start sleeping through the night, a mom works both the day AND night shift. Once sleep habits are firmly in place, you can still expect to be woken up in the middle of the night to clean up barf, change wet sheets, sooth away the bad dreams, take temperatures or administer medicine.

One survival skill every mom acquires to cope with the night shift is to do all these things while half-asleep. If you can stay half asleep, once you get back into your own bed, dreamland will be easier to slip back into. And this is important. Just because that kid kept you up half the night does NOT mean they'll let you sleep half the day.

And if you have healthy, sleeping kids who never have bad dreams or pee accidents, your being able to do various tasks while half-asleep will still come in handy. Because every once in a while, depending on how much water you drink before you go to bed, you will have to get up to use the . . .

. . . well, you know.

So the key to getting up in the middle of the night is to keep one foot in dreamland and one in reality. Above all, you should NOT think of any of the following things in your time out of bed:

Money
Stuff you have to do the next day
Men in clogs
Unfinished craft projects
Business ideas
Writing ideas
Kids who insist on wearing the same outfit every day
A slide show presentation you are doing the next day in school
What time the indoor track opens
What you are making for dinner for the next 3 nights
What you need to get at the grocery store
How the universe is endless
The perfect comeback to a certain Facebook status from 2 weeks ago
Money
Whether or not you took the garbage out
How you shouldn't have eaten that second piece of chocolate cake
Money

Just learn to keep your mind empty and you will be asleep in no time.

Good night.