is it bedtime already?

I've never been good at going to bed. When I was little, I fought it every night. As a tween, I'd take a flashlight to bed and read under the covers long after everyone else was asleep. I learned as a teen that my dad fell asleep watching the news pretty much every night, and if I sat quietly, reading or watching TV, I could stay up another couple of hours while he snoozed in his easy chair. Once I was on my own, with no one to push me off to bed, I had many, many late nights. It doesn't matter if I'm asleep or half-asleep on the couch or in a chair - it isn't giving up until I actually go to bed.

I'm still like that. No matter now tired I am, how ready I am to go to sleep, I fight having to actually climb the stairs and get into bed. It's become kind of a joke between me and my husband. He feels fairly strongly about us going up to bed together, and honestly, I do like that, too. Sharing quiet conversation in the dark, drifting off to sleep together - it's a very intimate thing and a small piece of our day that, corny as it sounds, really adds to our marriage.

So now I'm back to where I was when I was young - it's a huge treat to stay up extra late, and I feel a little better when my husband travels for work or a guys' weekend, knowing that I'll be able to watch crappy TV and play video games and read and eat popcorn and snooze on the couch into the wee hours of the morning...