The Single Mom's Guide To Sleeping In

For the last thirteen years sleeping was just a fantasy. Something drunk college students were allowed to do with abandon but mom's were held to strict guidelines in my world. If I happened to sleep in the children would certainly perish from lack of nutrition and guidance. It also happens that every team, class and outing starts promptly at 9:30 am Saturday morning. After all in order to be an upstanding member of our great society we must maintain a healthy schedule full of activity and lacking rest.

At some point in your life you may find yourself alone for the weekend practicing "visitation" with dad. You have finally been awarded your rite to sleep in!

First you must stay up late, really late, otherwise your internal clock will think you are joking. To stay awake I suggest you do something you love. For me it is painting and reading and bugging old friends on the phone. I notice I tend to report my progress on Facebook as if the would needed to know I was sitting on the floor playing with old paint.

No need to follow my lead it could be things I don't enjoy so much like knitting or auto mechanics. One thing I would discourage is Farmville, although I have never played it myself I hear some folks become addicted and play for up to ten hours at a time. This will defeat the purpose of actually getting the sleep you need for "in" part. I have also received threats that if I don't tend to some random person's produce I will be responsible for a world food crisis. This does not lend itself to the peaceful nature of this process.

Under no circumstance should you cook or clean. This can lead to night terrors and you may find yourself wide awake at 4 am unable to drift back to sleep because you forgot to unload the dish washer or turn off the iron.

In my case I have dogs who tend to wake me up around 5 am. The solution for me is lock them downstairs with that old baby gate. They will protest but this is where the Benydril (for the dogs) and  headphones (for you) come in. After a short while your dogs will be so drugged they can't bark. To hell with PETA they don't have dark circle under their eyes.

You will wake up at random times worried about the children. To solve this issue I post notes telling me     "the children are not home go back to sleep you idiot"

The last element for success is the alarm clock. Yes, I know what you are thinking, why on earth an alarm clock when the purpose is to sleep with wild abandon? Well, your internal clock will keep waking up to check the time. You want to sleep in not sleep all day, that would be just too Jerry Springer. So I want to at least sleep until 9 am but  past 11:30. So I set my clock for 12. That way it only annoys me in the case of an over sleep emergency. 

To top off your victory I highly recommend coffee in bed.