I have what you might call a bit of a sleeping problem.

I blame a really weirdly wired brain, mostly. Well, that and a long multiple-jobbed filled day that starts early and requires copious amounts of cups of Joe. And probably having children who never like to go to sleep might contribute to it as well. And 5am Gilmore Girls too, I guess.

See, here’s the thing.

Every night I’m in bed at a fairly decent time. I’m pretty geriatric in most ways, so my flannel jammied, socked mid-thirties self is under the covers with peppermint tea and a remote by 10pm every night. Sometimes 9:30 even. That sounds pretty ideal, right? Even for someone whose first alarm goes off at 5:45am, if you are doing the math at home, seven hours and forty-five minutes is not bad at all.

If I went to sleep at 10pm. Which I do not. Ever.

Well, once. 

Of course, because at 10pm, that’s when the children-who-are-still-awake (read: ALL THREE) brigade begins. Can you just fix this dropped stitch? Can I just tell you one quick thing? Can I just ask you this? Can I grab something from your bathroom? Can I grab something from the printer? Can you fix the broken printer? Can you fix my broken lightbulb? Can you find my black leggings? Can you tell my sibling to please flush the toilet? Can I use your bathroom because my sibling didn’t flush the toilet? I think I saw a spider—can you find it? Can you wash my backpack—I somehow managed to spill hot chocolate in it? Can you fix my blankets? Can I tell you this extremely exciting thing that happened in this book I’m reading? Can I sing you the song I’m going to sing in the talent show auditions tomorrow? I got a papercut—can I get a band-aid? Can you help me get the band-aid? 

(This usually ends in me raising my voice and telling my children that NO I CANNOT DO ALL OF THOSE THINGS OMG. I’m not proud.)

10pm is also when my remote and I become familiar with my latest binge-watch. I just finished plowing my way through Masters of Sex and now I’m on to Vikings. Both are excellent, by the way. Extremely opposites in every way, and Vikings does require the use of closed-captioning at times (read: the entire time). But sometimes I just can’t figure out how to not watch just one more episode or at least watch the intro to see where the cliffhanger from the last episode goes. Eventually I get sleepy and turn off my show.

And then…nothing. Sleep does not come. 10pm, 11pm, 12pm, 1am, 2am. It doesn’t really matter what time I start trying. My brain will just not shut off. There’s so much to think about, so much a-buzz. I try. I try to read—and then I end up finishing my novel. I try to watch whatever late-night show is on, maybe the noise in the background will help. No. I try to find a more comfortable position—back, stomach, side, flamingo-style. Nope.

And then I finally fall asleep.

And then at 5am I am up, and after minutes of realizing that I’m not going to fall back asleep, watching Gilmore Girls on M3, until my alarm goes off at 5:45am.

And then we lather, rinse, repeat.

HELP!