Last night was supposed to be the beginning of a tradition Daniel and I are attempting implementing this semester: Friday date/family night. Friday nights can't be booked for any campus ministry events (because of IVCF) and the church leadership typically leaves that night available and, well, since last semester kind of left our family a bit steam-rolled, we decided carving out some intentional time to share and be together would be a wise thing.

Dinner was eaten, dishes were washed. Daniel played (code for wrestling) with the kids on the floor while I sat like an exhausted zombie in the nearby chair. 8pm quickly rolled around and, with it, preparations for the kids' bedtime: pajamas, teeth brushing, potty using, water drinking, etc. Jack fell asleep in my arms while Daniel did the reading aloud of All Of A Kind Family; Bronwyn followed suit shortly thereafter and Gabriel... Well, Gabriel takes a long time to fall asleep every night, and he hates to break with tradition. (I've asked him.)

If you'd driven by our house at about 9:10pm (like they did), you would have seen Daniel and I sitting side-by-side on the futon in our family room. I was reading a book (code for dozing) and he was reading up on his beloved Pirates.

Not so very quality.

But sometimes a person (or people, in this case) is just too tired to have much to say. The exhaustion reaches a point at which the brain stops thinking any more than is absolutely necessary. In other words, my brain was saying, "Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out." It would have taken way too much energy to verbalize these thoughts.

By 9:30pm Daniel and I agreed that sometimes a date/family night just needs to be rest. So we went to bed, where my eyes closed and I lost consciousness simultaneously.

Of course, if Daniel and the kids had so desired, we could have had a grand ol' time in the middle of the night when I was wide awake.

You see, Jack woke around 2am, like he does every night. I fed him and put him back to bed. He fell asleep. I went back to bed, but I didn't fall asleep. I laid there. I tried not to move so as to not wake Daniel. I closed my eyes, but my mind still saw a million things. The wheels of my brain were turning fast, but I was getting nowhere in a hurry. I punched the pillow down. I pulled the blankets closer. I pictured myself sleeping in my mind's eye. But 4:30am rolled around and, along with it, Jack's #2 night feeding and the realization that I'd lost 2+ hours of precious and much-desired sleep.

Let's just say it's a good thing we aren't going to be doing much tonight, other than zombie-ing our way over to a little celebration of my oldest little sister, 'cause my brain activity will probably close resemble last night's--except that I'll be thinking that my parents must have lied to me about my birthdate (since insomnia isn't something 23-year-olds are known to be plagued by), in addition to the whole breathing thing.