“Veronica, every time I pour water on your head to wash your hair you jerk your head. I know you hate water in your eyes. Can’t you keep your head still when you know the same thing happens every day?”<\/p>\n
Her beautiful blue eyes look straight at me, considering. “No.”<\/p>\n
Every day the same thing, you know. It’s part of the bedtime routine. We have it all worked out with clockwork regularity.<\/p>\n
She complains about all the same things.<\/p>\n
And, I am ashamed to say; I get snappy at the same times too.<\/p>\n
My head is running the top hits:<\/p>\n
I am so tired. Why can’t she hurry up? Is she going to complain about the pajamas AGAIN? please please please pick a short story to read tonight. Please, I can barely stop yawning.<\/em><\/p>\n I’ve even taken advantage of her illiteracy to skip sentences in the chosen bedtime story to make them go faster. I yawn my way through.<\/p>\n When I was working, I felt the pull of time so heavy. I had to be up at five! I had spent ALL DAY being exhausted, couldn’t I get to the part where I could sleep? It felt like an upturned bucket of tired over my head all the time.<\/p>\n I don’t have to get up at five every day now. Once I paid attention, I made a discovered. It didn\u2019t’ matter how caught up on my sleep I was. I yawned my way through the bedtime stories. I still had a bucket of tired on my head.<\/p>\n The irony. This sleepy-time ritual worked on me too.<\/p>\n I spend years–Veronica’s whole life!–kicking against the goads and railing against the burden of how supremely tired I was at bedtime.<\/p>\n I was so blind. I wonder how many other things I’m completely wrong about?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Veronica, every time I pour water on your head to wash your hair you jerk your head. I know you hate water in your eyes. Can’t you keep your head still when you know the same thing happens every day?” … Continue reading