I have never been a good sleeper.

When I was in elementary school, I would always wake up in the middle of the night for something.  Sometimes it was random bloody noses, sometimes it was nightmares…sometimes I would just wake up.  And lay there.  Moving to the couch in the living room helped, because my grandfather was usually awake watching infomercials since he couldn’t sleep either.  He usually got the big couch, and I got the loveseat.  He also would leave his dentures under the coffee table, just out of obvious sight, when he started falling asleep, and let me tell you: that never failed to gross me out.  In a good way.  It is an endearing memory I have of him.  I think grandfathers are allowed to troll their families in their own weird and subtle ways.

So, at 2:30 this morning, my 6 year old had a nightmare and came into our bedroom for help.  As a child, though, I would stand next to my parents’ bed, and consequently freak them out by just staring at them trying to figure out if I should wake them up at all… he  proceeded to jump on me and crawl into bed with the energy of a puppy.

So, I was very awake.

And it is 5:30.

And I am still awake.

I figured sleep just wasn’t coming, so I might as well get up and make the most of my time.

I believe that knowledge and awareness go a long way, and I have a feeling that I am going to become very aware of how tired I am around lunch time today, with the knowledge that I’ve had 2 hours of sleep.

With this in mind, I have the foreknowledge that I am going to be cranky.

This may be overthinking things a little bit…but I have nothing better to do right now.  There are things that happen every day around here that bug me, but they are very little things that I can fix.  None of them are a big deal at all.  And I can handle them.  When I am well rested.  But today, I am not. So these little things are going to pile up quickly, and instead of reacting to them, I am going to anticipate my irritation and not react to them, since I saw them coming already!

Ha Ha!

Seriously, I need to sleep.

 

So here we go!  10 things I know will irritate me this afternoon!

1. Open cabinets.  I don’t know why this bothers me to the degree it does, but walking into the kitchen and seeing an open cabinet just drives me nuts.

2. Cereal bowls left on the table.

3. Cereal bowls left on the couch.

4. Binder paper on the floor.

5. No one can find a pen.

6. They can find a pencil, but not a pencil sharpener.

7. I mess up the sandwich orders and give the sandwich with no jelly to the child who wanted the jelly, and the sandwich with jelly to the child who didn’t want the jelly, and go right into transcendental Socratic arguments of whether or not we really have the sandwich that we were intended to have, and what does jelly really mean anyway?

8. Coming downstairs to see the front door open, and then having to do a headcount.

9. Missing shoes.

10. These guys are basically going to be my inner monologue until I get some rest.