Serious Sleep Aversion

My children seem to be opposed to many things......cleanliness, doing as they're told, sitting still, using tissues, eating their dinner, getting ready for school, watching sensible television......I could go on for hours. Miss Tornado Two is averse to the toilet. Mr 5 is not interested in removing his finger from his nose. Mr 10 is dead set opposed to eating fruit...or vegetables....or anything for that matter. And Miss 8? She's pretty much against anything that requires any sort of effort on her behalf. 'Do as you please' seems to be her catch phrase of the moment.

I can handle all of this, really I can. As much as I feel like I'm headbutting a brick wall for a large portion of the day I can deal with these minor misdemeanours that my children dish out.

There is one thing I can't handle however, and that is their deep and uncompromising aversion to sleep.

How can anyone be averse to sleep?  I hear you ask. What could possible possess these small people to want to be up to all hours of the night and then be bouncing off the walls at 5 am in the morning?

I have absolutely no idea.

I love sleep. I savour it. I obsess about it. I adore climbing into bed, burying myself under a million blankets and drifting off into the land of nod. Only to be disturbed....disrupted.....interrupted.
'Mum, I need to go to the toilet'
'I'm thirsty'
'My ear hurts'
'I have a sore tummy'
'I can't sleep'
'There's a monster in my room'
And Miss Two's favourite.......'WAAAAAAAAH!"

And they time it perfectly. Just as my mind begins to wander, my eyes start to flicker shut and I begin to disappear into a warm, safe and fuzzy world..

Only to be jerked back into the harsh reality of my life. The life of a Mother who's children do not sleep.

I secretly want to crawl deeper into my bed and ignore them. Or tell them to 'bugger off' but I always get up, deal with the problem, tuck them back into their beds and kiss them goodnight.
'I love you darling', I say.
'Now bloody well go to sleep'

Remembering.......

I remember.....

The layers of blankets are pulled up over my head. I am snuggled down, as far down the bed as I can go. My skinny legs tucked up into my stomach, my hands are over my ears, my eyes are tightly closed.

It is cold in my room, but I'm not hiding from the cold...I'm hiding from the thing...the thing in my room. I know it's there like it has been every night, hiding in the corner, waiting and watching. Waiting for me....8 years old...skinny, shy and afraid.

Although my ears are covered by my hands I can still hear every little sound as though it's amplified a hundred times. The trees moving outside, the tap dripping in the bathroom, my sister snoring softly in the bed next to mine and I fancy I can hear the thing...moving around my room, looking for me.


What will happen when it finds me, I wonder. Will it steal me away from my parents? Will it turn me into a thing just like it? My frenzied and over-active brain comes up with several different scenarios, each one more terrifying than the last.....sleep is fruitless.

Above is this weeks exercise for 'Write On Wednesday' (Oops! I'm a day late..sorry!)
The brief was to write "I remember' at the top of the page, set a timer for 5 minutes and then write....

This memory is very clear for me still. A few weeks beforehand, I had snuck out into the lounge and watched from behind the couch a movie my parents were viewing..... 'Poltergeist.' The result of my late night wanderings? Several weeks of nightmares and terrified huddling at the foot of my bed! I certainly learnt my lesson and still cannot watch a scary movie to this day!