December 15, 2017
11:46 p.m.

Well, it's official: half the people in this house are seriously off schedule.

My daughter took a night position at a local WalMart store. She's been working there for awhile now.

(You may recall my panic upon learning that there had been an active shooting incident there while I was still in Wyoming. I was seriously grateful she wasn't shopping or something at the time, and was not scheduled to work for several more hours when the shooting took place, so she was home and safe. The world has become a terribly frightening place!)

Anyway, since I've been home, we have been trying to make sure, somehow, that my daughter gets some sleep. At the same time, her toddler has been stubbornly launched a campaign to make sure she gets to spend time with her mom, awake or asleep.

This has resulted in her crawling in to sleep with her mother for late-in-the-day naps, which has led to her staying up later and later at night--not a huge issue for me, since I'm up anyway, but now she's sleeping later and later, I'm getting to sleep well after my daughter gets home from work--after seven a.m. on her work days--and then I might sleep three to four hours while she tries to stay awake and engage with the toddler until at least noon before she goes to sleep and I take over chasing and engaging.

We're tired.

Well, not the toddler--she's all good, except for trying not to be noisy at midnight when the other adults and her brother are sleeping.

So my plan for tonight is to try to get her to sleep before three in the morning. It's midnight, she's playing and watching "My Little Ponies" and trying to be quiet, and I'm writing. I suppose what I should be doing is turning off all the lights and making her lie down. Except I am busy, because this is my time of day to be writing and such.
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December 16, 2017
1:57 a.m.

Well, that only took two hours.

Gosh, it's fun explaining why we don't go to the beach or eat ice cream cones at one in the morning.

I'm not about to complain, though. This is the earliest she's gone to sleep all week.

Crap. Spoke too soon.
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3:47 a.m.

And here we are. I decided to stay nearby for awhile this time. Sheesh!

It has been at this point where I have just decided to wait for the girl to get home before going to bed, because, why not? The house is quiet. I might get some work done.

But I'm not as good at the four-hours-of-sleep shifts as I used to be. I must be getting old. So I'm going to sneak off to bed now and hope she stays asleep.

Wish me luck!

Good Night!