Smart Habit Saturday

Once upon a time in Blogville, there lived a meme called Smart Habits Saturday. It wasn't a very big meme, like Menu Planning Monday or Works for Me Wednesday, but it was a small meme of self-improvement...or maybe a meme of small self-improvements is a better description. The person who ran the carnival went on hiatus, so I did too, but I think it's time to get back to it as I am slipping in to old ways around here.

The idea of SHS was to take one small positive change and do it every day for a week or more until it was a smart habit. Drinking more water and 5-15 minutes a day decluttering were favorites (and not just of mine). But it was a way to put out there what you wanted to get done and to be held somewhat accountable for it.

Even though the carnival is still on break, I need to revive it for myself. And while the water and the decluttering could use work too, I am going to start with going to bed before midnight. This shouldn't be as hard as it is for me. I love love love love love to sleep. But I also love being alone. And I had kids that I nursed exclusively for six months each and longer than that overall. (TMI? Sorry. It is relevant, though, really.) I was sort of getting back on track from the first, who was never a great sleeper unless he was nestled between the two of us, sleeping in the exact same position as his father, when the second was born. By then I was so desperate for time to myself, and so sleep deprived that it really became just a little easier to stay up for the 1am feeding than to try to go to sleep between 9-1 and hoist myself out of bed again. It seemed crueler to myself to do that.

So I started staying up. My husband would dutifully troop off to bed, but I'd grab some DVR time or some computer time, or read one of the zillions of things around here that I want to read and never get to.

Which brings us to now. I haven't nursed anyone for well over a year now. And yet, the 1am habit continues. I can practically hear my circa-January-2006 self screaming at my today-self, "WHAT IN THE SAM HILL ARE YOU THINKING?!?!? You CAN go to bed for hours on end and you are CHOOSING not to? Can you come back here then and take care of this baby while I get some rest, please????" So many nights I was desperately trying to stay awake in the glider, staring at the clock, willing myself not to fall over from exhaustion and hurt the baby. And now here I am, bringing it on myself, except without the baby part.

So I don't know what my problem is except that I am in a bad habit. So I'm going to try for a better one this week and be in bed before midnight. That's it...just an hour earlier. Eleven would be better but that would involve finding the remote for the TV in the bedroom so I could watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report there. And that might be a bit too ambitious for me.