A new spin on a night off

Day 7 for me today. Wow, listen to me and my amazing maths powers!  At least starting this on New Years day makes it easier for me to work out how many days sober I am… (well,  at least until February, when it’ll all go to hell in a handcart).

I’ve been feeling tired all week, but I’m putting that down to a) my friend the abcess, b) my delightfully exhausting children,  and c) the new school/nursery/work schedule. I’ve still noticed a few benefits of being AF, despite this. I’m finding that I no longer feel like I need to go to bed shortly after the children. In fact preferably before. Not that I ever did, mind you, I just used to grumble about being utterly exhausted whilst exercising my right elbow pouring myself more wine. I now find myself actually feeling quite awake at about 11pm at night! I’ve even been staying up till midnight and beyond, reading. This is backfiring slightly,  and I’m actually getting less sleep, as the smalls apparently didn’t get the memo about Mummy needing a lie-in, due to all her newfound energy.

My next challenge is tomorrow night. My lovely parents-in-law have offered to have all three children overnight, as they often do, to give us a break. The scenario on such nights would usually play out thus:

We’d  race home from work, change into clothes not covered in weetabix, and head straight out to one of our favourite craft beer spots for “early doors”.  We’d do some “research” and try lots of new beers we’d not tried before. We’d then decide that it was getting quite busy, and as we needed to take the opportunity to recharge our batteries, we should really go home. We’d pick up a takeaway, and some bottles of wine (at least one each) and head off. We’d then eat, drink more wine, and attempt to watch a film, during which I’d fall asleep multiple times. We’d then perk up a bit, and think it was a bloody good idea just to listen to a couple of tracks before bed. Oh but we’d need a drink to do that, so I’d forage under the stairs, find something fizzy, and in the blink of an eye, it’d be 3am, we’d be singing at the tops of our voices, fully believing we really can harmonise beautifully, drinking something that tasted like disinfectant, but was probably supposed to be a Speyside, and then staggering to bed. We’d wake up about 10am, horrifically hungover, and “enjoy” our child free lie-in. Not.At.All.

The stupid thing is, we’d always romanticise these evenings in advance. “We’ve been so tired, what we need is some time together,to relax, and get a really good night’s sleep”. And “wow – we’ll get a lie-in, without being interrupted by small people! We may even *hold the press* get the chance for romantic morning nookie!!!”.

And then we’d get royally pissed and utterly bugger all that up. We’d be unable to remember large chunks of the night, we may even have argued. And we’d have written off a precious Saturday to feeling like death, with our livers screaming for mercy.

Here’s my alternative plan for my first alcohol-free, child-free night:

We’ll have a nice, but quick tea, and head up to the cinema to see Star Wars, where I’ll be eating Revels and feeling about 10 years old again. Then home, an early night, and awake to a marvellous, hangover free lie-in on Saturday morning. Now doesn’t that sound better?

Red xx