(Originally posted in Facebook on February 19, 2019)
One of the biggest changes for M has been his relationship with time and getting himself up in the morning. Last year, through the spring and summer, there were several days when M would tell me he had been awake during the night and had looked at his alarm clock, but had been unable to determine what time it was. He’s always been the type of person who liked to wake up before the alarm goes off. He’s never likes the sound of the alarm – whether it’s a beeping sound or music – and he wants to avoid hearing it, if at all possible.
He also has a prescription for glasses – not just readers, but bifocal glasses – and he REFUSES to wear them. He will wear them to drive, especially at night, if I insist on it. And he will wear them to read or to do a task that requires he see something very small and detailed. But other than that – no. If I ask why, he tells me that he doesn’t need them, that he can see just fine. Never mind that an eye doctor has determined that he CANNOT see just fine and has prescribed these glasses for him.
So when M told me he couldn’t figure out what time it was when he looked at his alarm clock, my first thought was that he couldn’t see it . . . he didn’t have his glasses on. So we bought a clock with bigger numbers that he couldn’t miss. But that didn’t stop the problem. Then he started getting up during the night and, even though he could see what the numbers were on the clock beside the bed, he would go down into the kitchen and confirm the time on the clock there – as though he doubted the time he was seeing in the bedroom. There were a couple of times he got up and got himself dressed for work before he realized he was several hours too early.
What made it a problem for me was that he was waking me up every time he got out of bed to check the time. I’ve become a light sleeper in the last five years or so, and his nightly walks around the house were starting to interfere with my sleep. Finally, in the fall, I made a deal with him. I agreed to set my alarm for 5 am – the time he needs to get up. I promised to get up with him and prepare a keto diet-friendly breakfast for him and get him out the door at 5:30, in plenty of time for work, if he would promise to stay in bed and not worry about the time during the night.
So far, it’s worked out pretty well. We’ve been doing this for about six months and, in all that time, he’s only asked me what time it was during the night twice. And I’ve forgotten to set my alarm just once. Fortunately, I woke up at 5:10 that morning, so we were okay.
Something funny happened this past weekend – my youngest brother and his family were visiting us and their youngest daughter is two. At some point during the night, the daughter started crying and M said, “Honey, the baby is crying.” I told him, “Yes, and she has two parents in there who can handle it.” Although I’m sure they would have appreciated it if I had gotten up and taken care of their child for them!
I try to be a good hostess, but there is a limit!