HE SAID/SHE SAID: Sleep suffers when boys home for summer

___When does school start again? ___I forget what it's like every year. I was even grateful that school was out this year, ready for a more relaxing atmosphere at home without an intense schedule constantly looming over us. ___What I didn't take into account was now that school is out, the boys are home. All day. With me. And even though they are much more independent, their presence means one thing: I can't get anything done. ___ Now, instead of my afternoons ALISON WINGFIELD and evenings being consumed with school activities and volunteer jobs, my entire day seems to be eaten up by the boys' social calendar and play activities. If their friends aren't at our house, then I'm carting Luke and Garrett to their house or to the skating rink or the library. ___ And when we're at home, they hog the computer or stand over my shoulder when I'm trying to work and constantly ask me when I'm going to be done. ___ Of course, there is the telephone law. The boys can be getting along great the entire day, playing on their own, no questions for me, the house relatively quiet. And then, I get on the phone. And every kid knows that when a parent gets on the phone, that is the best time to pick a fight with a sibling or ask 20 questions of said parent or stir up any number of other noisy distractions. And if the call is work-related, the telephone law goes applies doubly. ___Thank goodness for e-mail--provided I can tear my chilren away from the computer long enough to check on it. ___When Mark comes home from work, the house is usually a disaster and I haven't even thought about dinner. What happened to my day? Mark Wingfield is managing editor of the Standard. Alison Wingfield is a freelance writer. The Wingfields moved to Texas from Louisville, Ky., where Mark had been editor of the Western Recorder, in which this column appeared weekly. __While Alison bears the brunt of the boys' summer schedule during the day, I'm the one paying the price at night. ___ Since Alison works part-time from home, I'm the only one in the family who's having to get up and go anywhere early every morning. And the boys are getting old enough that they want to stay up later, which we're slowly letting them do. ___ Problem is, that cuts into the small window of time I have to get MARK WINGFIELD anything done at home at night--the time between when they go to bed and we go to bed. Call it the vanishing adult time. ___ Lately, I've discovered that I've just pushed my nighttime schedule back as the boys have pushed theirs back. Unfortunately, that puts me going to bed rather late for such an early morning. By Friday of each week, I'm dragging the floor due to lack of sleep. ___ I tried explaining this to Garrett the other day, when he was begging me to let him stay up and watch a Chicago Cubs game that began at 9 p.m. The fact that I couldn't go to bed until he was in bed--and that I might need to have some time to pull myself together after he was in bed--didn't seem to connect at all. ___"It's OK, Dad," he replied. "You can go to bed whenever you want." ___ Maybe he just knows that his mother is a night owl and she will be there to take care of him. But I don't think so. Instead, I think it's a declaration of independence--and one I'm not quite ready to accept yet. ___ I suppose we're all like the boys in this respect. I wonder if we sometimes impede God's work in the world by looking at things only from the perspective of what we want or need. What's convenient or desirable to us individually may not be the best option in the big scheme of things. ___ Sometimes we, too, need a heavenly Father to tell us it's bedtime, even though we're ready to do our own thing. ___

PREVIOUS HE SAID/ SHE SAID COLUMNS:
1999: 6/16, 6/23, 6/30, 7/14, 7/21, 7/28, 8/4, 8/11, 8/18, 8/25, 9/1, 9/8, 9/15, 9/29, 10/6, 10/13, 10/20, 10/27 11/17, 11/24, 12/1, 12/8, 12/15, 12/22,

2000: 1/5, 1/19, 1/26, 2/2, 2/9, 2/16, 2/23, 3/1, 3/8, 3/22, 3/27, 4/3, 4/10, 4/17, 4/24, 5/1, 5/8, 5/15, 5/22, 5/29, 6/5, 6/12, 6/19, 6/26, 7/10, 6/26, 6/19, 7/17, 7/24, 7/31, 8/7, 8/14, 8/21, 8/28, 9/4, 9/11, 9/18, 9/25, 10/2, 10/9, 10/16, 11/6, 11/20, 11/27, 12/11.

2001: 1/1, 1/8, 1/22, 2/5, 2/12, 3/5, 4_19, 4/2, 4/23, 5/14 6/11


Get printer-friendly version of this story


Send this story to a friend