It’s Because

“Veronica, every time I pour water on your head to wash your hair you jerk your head. I know you hate water in your eyes. Can’t you keep your head still when you know the same thing happens every day?”

Her beautiful blue eyes look straight at me, considering. “No.”

Every day the same thing, you know. It’s part of the bedtime routine. We have it all worked out with clockwork regularity.

She complains about all the same things.

And, I am ashamed to say; I get snappy at the same times too.

My head is running the top hits:

I am so tired. Why can’t she hurry up? Is she going to complain about the pajamas AGAIN? please please please pick a short story to read tonight. Please, I can barely stop yawning.

I’ve even taken advantage of her illiteracy to skip sentences in the chosen bedtime story to make them go faster. I yawn my way through.

When I was working, I felt the pull of time so heavy. I had to be up at five! I had spent ALL DAY being exhausted, couldn’t I get to the part where I could sleep? It felt like an upturned bucket of tired over my head all the time.

I don’t have to get up at five every day now. Once I paid attention, I made a discovered. It didn’t’ matter how caught up on my sleep I was. I yawned my way through the bedtime stories. I still had a bucket of tired on my head.

The irony. This sleepy-time ritual worked on me too.

I spend years–Veronica’s whole life!–kicking against the goads and railing against the burden of how supremely tired I was at bedtime.

I was so blind. I wonder how many other things I’m completely wrong about?