I used to have alone time. It was wonderful. Nine o' clock rolled around and my kids were in bed. Oops, sorry! You have five minutes until bedtime. No I can't help it, that's the rule. As though it wasn't within my control. And they bought it. Never questioned it, it was a House Rule, and they would obediently trot off to bed. I was blessed. Until this year.
My oldest daughter, at 16, thinks she can stay up as late as she wants. There are times I go to bed in exasperation, telling her to lock up when she's done. Mostly, she stays out of our way, so out of sight is out of mind. Mostly. Now my son, He Who Used to Sleep by 9, is up past 10 as well. Puberty may be striking, and it is playing havoc with his sleep schedule. He used to be up with the sun, now he actually sleeps in a few days a week. But he is also not tired at bedtime, and too busy to follow the 
slumber rules. Trying to get him off of video games or to stop reading a book is damn near impossible. And when I do finally get him to go to bed (tonight was quite after 11) he gets up at least five times.
Tonight was no exception. I was being tag-teamed by the both of them.Finally, after medicine to help JBug's bug bites, a question or three, she finally left us alone enough to get through the television show we had on DVR.(Doctor Who, thank you very much). By that time, it was midnight. AND…the dog needed to go out. Pause the show, again. Then JBear showed up,with a broken fingernail, and needed a bandaid. And shortly after that, he needed Advil because his legs hurt. And a bit after that, he needed a drink. And then the bathroom. And, of course, each time, we paused the show and waited.
I don't know about you, but my Mom Sense just cannot relax as long as I have a kid who isn't tucked in for the night. Call it obsessive, call it anxiety-prone, if you'd like. I call it being on duty, 24/7. And I cannot let go. I have tried. But Mama Bear just stays at the ready. Once the little cubs are safe in their dens, I relent, breathe deeply, and have a martini. Of course, if they don't get into bed before midnight… no cocktails for me. And no cocktails makes for a very unhappy mama.
And, as the old adage goes, "If mama ain't happy, well you can just get your butt back to bed or so help me God, I won't be responsible for what happens next." Or something along those lines. I could be paraphrasing, but that's how I remember it, anyway.
*I am only kidding about that last part. Mostly.
How about you? How do you get your "alone time?"Click and tell me in comments
T, who is up way too late in order to get some time to herself
4 sent chocolate:
I am SO glad someone else admits to this!! Bedtime for us is 1 quarter kids need sleep, and 3 quarters Mommy needs peace!!
The girl goes to bed pretty well, but the boy has been up until midnight the last 3 nights, and I hate going to bed when he's up. Plus he doesn't stay in his room, its "mom I gotta tell you" or "I need a drink" or a million and a half other things whichall translate into Mommy gets no downtime.
It's school holidays... sigh.
Ours are 17, 15, and 11.5 (going on 20), so we head upstairs to bed and they are fairly self-sufficient. They know that if they wake us up, they will get grumpy parents and be ordered straight to bed.
Unfortunately, the 11yr old was caught out by the dog the other night. Dog heads out to bark at a cat, wakes up hubby. Hubby goes to kitchen for a drink, notices light on downstairs, heads down to turn it off, and finds Curly still on the computer at 3:30am. He said the others had gone at 2:30am. Hah.
We woke them up, bright and cheery at 9am the next day. Evil, hey?
Alone time I get during school term, because I'm a shiftworker and get days off during the week. Bliss.
I just threaten her....okay, maybe not threaten but I do tell her, 'be quiet, mommy's searching for a husband online'.
Alone time? What is that?
Seriously, my kids used to go to bed at 11pm and wake up at 10am. I thought it was awesome, until we started doing things. Suddenly, being somewhere at 9 in the morning got really hard.
After a month-long trip to the East Coast we all of the sudden started going to bed a lot earlier. Now they are usually in bed before 9. But they also wake up at 7:30 every morning. I'm not really fond of that.
Anyway, my point is, 9pm to midnight is my kid-free time. Although I'm usually too tired to do anything besides comment on people's blogs and tweet.
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