Parenting and sleep

I think we can all agree that once we become parents sleep becomes a luxury...at least until that point when we hit bottom and it becomes a necessity.  Regardless, parenting babies means little sleep.  Parenting toddlers means you sleep through the night most nights, but you still need to be awake when the children are awake.

But then they hit those early school age years, and they don't necessarily require constant supervision.  You probably don't have to get up with them for them to watch their Saturday morning cartoons and if you have a child that can reach the pop-tarts...Woo Hoo!  They will even allow you to sleep another hour or so (in fact, in order to encourage our children to let us sleep a little more on the weekends, we had the rule that once we were up, we turned the TV off...talk about motivation to not disturb the parents)!  This folks, is the last time you will feel rested even one day a week...

...because then you hit the beginning of the "involved" years.  While the kids are more than old enough to take care of themselves, children of this age will almost certainly have a 9:00 soccer game/basketball game/baseball game/gymnastics meet/cheerleading competition/scout event that will require, if you are lucky it is close enough, that everyone be out the door by 8AM.  Hard to believe, but you will someday wish for these days...

...because next is the high school years.  Now, I will grant you that Robert has made an effort to join EVERYTHING, but I remember I wasn't much different at his age.  Last week he returned with the marching band from the away football game at 11:30.  Not awful, except that he had to be back at school just 7-1/2 hours later to catch the bus for his cross country meet, and obviously, a parent needed to be doing the driving.  Normally if I have to be up prior to 6AM I make sure I am in bed absolutely no later than 10:00, but that wasn't an option Friday night.  Yes, I am married and his father could certainly help, but since I am not currently working I am trying to allow him to sleep when he can because I can always take a nap during the school day if I really try.  Robert's schedule is exhausting for us, because we are just not as young as we used to be!  There is part of me that is looking forward to a year from now when he will be able to drive himself, but I'll be honest, I do not see sleeping blissfully at that point either...I see lots of anxiety & prayers!