Where's My Sticker Chart?

Last night as I shed my clothes and crawled into bed, feeling the warmth of the down comforter and my sleeping husband soon envelope me, I gave a huge sigh of relief to finally be in bed and at the same time began cursing myself for once again staying up way too late. It doesn't matter what I tell myself; I do this every night. It's a really vicious cycle and I'm (excuse the pun) tired of it.

After the kids are in bed and dinner is cleaned up, I finally get the chance to sit on the couch, turn on the TV, play some more Tetris on Facebook, and just relax. And that's fine. There is nothing wrong with relaxing. The problem comes when it becomes time to stop simply "relaxing" and actually go upstairs to bed.

I just don't do it.

Hmmm....I wonder what else is on TV.

I am just soooo comfortable right here on the couch.

I just have to beat her score in Tetris. Just one more game.

And before I know it, it is midnight. Or later. And we all have school in the morning.

I fall asleep quickly (hey, narcolepsy does have some benefits!) but way too soon I hear the kids talking in the hallway or in their rooms. The official rule is they have to stay in their beds until the clock radio turns on, our solution to the three of them waking up WAY too early every day, but they have been really testing the limits of that rule, and the sound of them playing before any alarm goes off in the morning has been getting louder and earlier every day. Because I was up so late I don't want to get out of bed. I'm legitamitely tired, and sleep deprivation definitely does not help, so I try to put the covers over my ears and go back to sleep. I usually can do this immediately (again, narcolepsy, not all bad) but only for bursts of five to ten minutes when my personal snooze alarms walk in and out of my room: "I'm dressed!" "Can I watch TV before breakfast?" "He hit me!" "I can't find my shoes!" I wake enough to address each issue (Good. No. Tell him NOT to hit you. Where did you leave them?) and then go back to sleep before needing to handle the next emergency.

When I wake up again, it's late, which means the kids are late, which means I'll be late, which means I have to run around like a crazy person to get everyone out the door, drive all three to school, and then get myself to my school where I now have to run around in half the time I need to prep my classroom before all the kids come rushing in, eager to have my complete and total attention.

I don't like this at all. It's not fair to my kids, it's not fair to my body, and it's definitely not fair to my sanity.

Thinking like a teacher, I believe I need some kind of behavioral modification. Maybe some kind of positive reinforcement system, like every night I'm in bed by ____ I can ____. Just don't know what that should be yet.

And of course, after teaching until 1, picking up J at my parents' and helping her with her Kindergarten homework before guiding J and my niece into some kind of cooperative play, I'm just too tired to think about it anymore.