The difficulties of being an aging night owl

I have always been a person who functioned better in the evening than during the day. That first, beautiful ray of sunlight that peeks over the horizon at dawn? Never see it, unless in my youth, when I had been out all night. Then I saw it through bleary eyes as I was falling face down onto my bed. I love the quiet and stillness that the nighttime brings. The children are asleep, as are most of my elderly neighbors and I'm left in glorious solitude.
It's possible for me to function on five or six hours of sleep. My dear husband requires at least 8 hours. My children need 12. Left to my own devices, I will stay up until 2 a.m. and sleep in 'til 11. But we're never left to our own devices are we?
Most of the world insists on keeping to a day timers schedule. Schools. Doctor's offices. The people who come to work at your house. Everyone assumes that you're a morning person. Except that when everyone else is winding down, I'm starting to wind up. According to the schemes of the world, I'm supposed to be bright eyed and bushy tailed after having eaten a healthy breakfast and exercised at the gym and showered. And I'm supposed to have done all this by 7 a.m.
And then there's the children. Those tiny human beings who spring from their beds and are ready to face the day. They decide that you should face the day at the exact same time, no matter that your aging body, dehydrated from the amount of Diet Mountain Dew you guzzled the night before, is screaming at you to stay in bed.
Therein lies the real issue: being an aging night owl.
I can honestly say that I crave the energy I had in my 20s to be melded with the wisdom and life I've gained in my 30s. Because in order to keep up with the daily demands of the day timers and get any of my precious nighttime solitude, I must consume large quantities of caffeine. Like some heroin addict, I need more and more of the stuff to keep going and reach the wakefulness that one can used to bring me. Twelve ounces of Diet Mountain Dew simply doesn't do it for me anymore. Now it takes two or three cans or perhaps a pot of coffee, a fact I keep from my urologist so as not to alarm him.
Where will it end? By my 40s, I very well could be hitting up convenience stores and stockpiling energy drinks. Although my older girlfriends tell me to enjoy the sleep that I do get, because someday hormonal changes will bewitch my body and sleep will come not at all. Perhaps then I'll replace my Diet Mountain Dew with a few cups of chamomile tea.

Just Playin' in the Rain

The world was a gray, drippy place until two six-year-olds decided to don their girly, pink rubber boots and stomp in puddles. Their laughter echoed through the neighborhood as they took turns running up and down the sidewalk, finding the biggest puddles. Nothing puts a smile on your face like watching 6-year-olds play in the rain. They don't worry about whether their socks get wet. They're not concerned with the state of their hair. They don't think about who might be watching.They just live in the excitement of the moment. That moment when their rubber boots connect with a puddle and they see how high they can make the water go.

I recall a summer when I was about their age. One of my favorite things to do was to walk into the middle of the road and pop tar bubbles with my bare toes. I didn't live on a busy street. In the small town where I grew up the roads were paved with a asphalt concoction that bubbled when it got especially hot, as it did that summer. I still remember how it felt standing in that road, the heat searing through my mosquito bite-covered legs and popping those bubbles. The particular squish as my big toe pressed down and how black the bottoms of my feet were afterwards. It was an addictive activity, like wringing plastic bubble wrap.

It's been a long time since I thought about popping tar bubbles. That lost memory didn't occur to me until Rose and Emma decided to play in the rain. Only six-year-olds would look at a dreary, water-logged landscape and see opportunity. Only a Kindergartner could appreciate the feeling of popping sticky, warm ooze with their bare skin. Adults so often worry about their to-do lists and tomorrows that they don't spend enough time inhaling the opportunities of today.

When I called Rose and Emma inside, they were soaked, mud-covered and breathless. And I was just a little bit envious.

Throw down at Mickey D's

Okay, so after the idiot who let loose pepper spray in Starbucks, I really believed that I was finished with stupid grown ups. Apparently not. Yesterday, I witnessed two grown women practically throwing punches in the McDonald's play area. I was sitting at a booth outside the play area, once again trying to get some writing done, with a friend of mine. My friend had brought her five-year-old daughter to play. Apparently, a grandmother tried to correct a little girl who had run into her granddaughter. At which point the mother of the little girl stood up and yelled, "If you have a problem with my kid, you come to me! You don't talk to her about it!" What ensued was the type of show that no one expects with their greasy fries. There was yelling, name-calling and cursing. Did I mention the room full of children that had front row seats to this show of adult misbehavior? Another mother tried to put herself between the two yelling women and remind them that there were children present. She got yelled at too.

Then came a mass exodus from the play area. Mothers hastily gathered coats and shoes and ushered their kids out the door. Someone else fetched the restaurant manager who interceded along with a burly guy who was working the restaurant's grill. The fighting women did not throw any punches but they threw enough insults to make a sailor blush. My only thought was for the little ones involved. If the women behaved this way in public, how the heck were they behaving at home?

There is an unspoken etiquette that applies to play areas which goes beyond the written rules on the cute posted signs. I don't mind if another parent steps in and admonishes my children as long as she isn't mean or malicious about it. I believe that it takes a village to raise children. If my children's behavior goes against our societal rules then I want my neighbor/friend/fellow citizen to step in and tell them in a kind way. Isn't kindness and respect for others some of the greatest lessons we can teach our kids? I don't think the two women at McDonald's have learned those lessons yet.

Let us all sweat together in silence

I don't really like working out. I do it because I'm told that if I don't, my body will break down into a gelatinous mass and I'll die more quickly. Always a bookish type, sweating annoys me, but I go and faithfully walk on the treadmill.

Today at the gym, I'm minding my own business, just walking and breathing, when a strange sound floats through the din of machines. Someone is singing. Two rows back on the recumbent bicycle row, a man is singing aloud, clearly grooving to whatever is coming through to him on his Ipod. That's disturbing enough, but he's singing really badly. It's some sort of strange falsetto that sounds like aliens chirping. Everyone around him is politely looking away, strangely focused on the readouts of their machines with slight smiles on their faces. It was sort of amusing. But I felt trapped. I was more than half-way through my work out and had 15 more minutes to go before I could quit. So I listened for 15 minutes straight. I wanted to go scrape my ears out with a wire brush by the time I was finished. Of all the days to leave my Ipod at home!

But Bad Singing Guy isn't the only one whose noisy habits have crossed my radar while I'm at the gym. There's also Loud Grunting Weight Lifter Guy, who sounds like he's constipated every time he lifts a barbell, and Excited Catch Up Woman, who sees one of her friends and stops to fill her in on escapades of the weekend.

Okay, see, now at this point you're shaking your head and suggesting that I just break down and buy a treadmill and walk at home. It's not like I haven't thought about it. But I actually need to have to go to a separate place to work out. An in-home treadmill would just turn into a coat rack and I'd procrastinate the inevitable. That's why I'm proposing that when we all have to gather at the gym, let us all sweat in silence. It will be much more pleasant that way. And next time I'm remembering my Ipod.

Sick kid syndrome

As I write this, my eldest daughter is curled up on the couch, her blond head nestled lovingly against her pillow pet. She's watching the antics of an old Yogi Bear cartoon, her stuffed lamb tucked underneath one arm. She's sick. A fever. A cough. And a crusty, runny nose. Like every other parent, I drop whatever I'm doing and nurse my child. Sure, I grouse along with the other moms when I'm out and about. Everyone knows that a sick six-year-old can be miserable and demanding. But secretly I kind of like it. When they're feeling at their worst, that's when they need me the most. I really don't mind fetching mugs of hot tea, making homemade chicken noodle soup and playing endless games of Disney princess checkers.

My kids are growing up faster than I care to admit. They're more independent. They're thinking for themselves and asking me to do less. Just today, while building a homemade tee pee out of some long sticks and miscellaneous blankets, Emma said, "You know Mom, I can figure these things out myself." Yes, I know and the tee pee was constructed. Inside I cringe. In a way, I've done this to myself. I've always wanted to raise strong, independent girls and it appears that that they're on that path. Hurray! I just don't want them skipping down that path too quickly.

Sports insanity

Let's make one thing clear: I love my husband. And while we are alike in many ways, we are also different in a few key areas. I love books and basically have shunned technology. (That's why so many of my friends are astonished that I started this blog. :) He revels in technology and figuring out the latest gadget. I am not particularly athletic and don't like to sweat much. He likes nothing better than to get out in the sunshine and swing a golf club or suit up and have hockey pucks whistling at breakneck speeds toward his face. I like to attend the occasional high school football game to enjoy the youthful exuberance, the brisk fall air and a warm cup of cocoa. He enjoys all different sports all the time. He can spout obscure statistics and pick out strategic plays. I once took a book with me to the U.S. Open so I'd have something to do during the boring parts.
So when it comes to events like the Superbowl, I try and survive them while he revels in them. To him the Superbowl represents the best teams of a season going for the big trophy, to me its a celebration that football season is about to be over. I'm sure my stance about sports annoys him, as his desire to view every game every weekend does me. But he puts up with my hobbies, so I must put up with his. Although I think playing with paper is a much more honorable pursuit than tracking the antics of sweaty men in tight pants. But that's just my opinion.

Breakfast in bed

This morning I was banned from my own kitchen. Two six-year-olds had taken up residence and were putting together breakfast for the whole family. I'm not sure if other people's kids do this, but I really like the fact that mine do. These are not fancy breakfasts. This is cereal poured into a bowl for each family member. They have also mastered the art of microwave oatmeal, so they make that for themselves. There's a lot of ruckus. A lot of shouts of, "Mom! You can't come into the kitchen!" They want to do it all on their own. They want to be independent. (Sigh) Then they carefully carry the tray to the bedroom and we all sit on the bed and eat our cereal together. There are a lot of knock-knock jokes exchanged and yes, the kitchen looks like it has been hit by a tornado. There's cereal spilled on the floor and on the stove. I usually can't find the cap to the milk, which has been left out. And there's just a sense of randomness and chaos everywhere I look. But I really don't care about all that. It's easily fixed. The lessons my girls are learning about putting others needs ahead of their own is important. The family time we share is priceless. And in a few years, I bet I'm going to miss those knock-knock jokes.