From May 6th 2022
Is it nearly bedtime yet? I mean, my evening bedtime. Not my afternoon bedtime. (Anyone would think I’M the three-year-old in this anecdote).
When I go for my afternoon bedtime, my son usually has some quiet time in his bedroom. He normally plays with his toys and watches his kindle. Not yesterday though. Yesterday he fell asleep. Which never would have happened if I didn’t need to be in bed myself to manage my M.E and POTS.
Consequently, he’d had so much sleep yesterday that he woke at the crack of dawn this morning and was most unreasonable about letting mummy go back to sleep … at 5.30am. I mean seriously, what fucking time?!
I cannot believe I used to be in the gym on a cardio high at that hour when I was healthy – and now here I am, trying to explain to my son that although the sun is shining… it is in fact, night-time. I failed. He didn’t believe me. To be fair, the sunny evidence outside did nothing to support my argument. Mother Nature, my arse. No mother wants to be awake at that time.
So, today I feel like a total zombie, my head hurts, and my body is on its knees begging for mercy. I’m trying to get my afternoon bedtime in, whilst trying to avoid a repeat of yesterday, by making sure my son stays awake. Largely by shouting from my bed, “are you still awake?!” at regular intervals… whilst desperately wishing I wasn’t. Oh dear. My mum-guilt is slightly alleviated by the fact I took him out to gymnastics this morning and cooked him a fuck-tonne of vegetables to eat for his tea tonight.
As always, my boy is being an absolute champion about it all. One of the millions of reasons why I love him.
This is a product of parenting with chronic illness. And this is me – raising awareness.
