I have read some fantastic books, but this takes the cake. I just stayed up ALL NIGHT reading The Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness. I knowingly stayed up, depriving myself of much needed sleep, knowing that my 3 energetic boys would get out of bed at just before 7am. I watched the hours tick by, from 11-something, through midnight, after 1, and eventually after 3.30, 4.40, after 5, then – sheesh – it’s 6am! Husband’s alarm went off just before 6 (why?!), and I kept on reading, changing positions, snacking on banana bread and occasionally slurping water; I took some unpronounceable pain reliever for my headache, and kept on reading. I was also watching Husband toss and turn, and snort himself silly, just like nearly 3yo. Husband is very dark and nearly 3yo is very blonde, but their facial expressions while sleeping are identical.

I am feeling surprising well for going on 26 hours awake. The boys are surprisingly well-behaved even though I have not slept a wink. Usually they sense my weakness and yell until my ears threaten to bleed, but not this morning. I wouldn’t trust myself to drive, much less with monkeys in the car, but I feel pretty good. Husband has buggered off to rugby training or some such thing, and I think there is a contractor coming over to fix something soon, so I will also need to get showered and dressed pretty nigh on now, actually. After that, I’m assuming Husband will take the boys out almost all day and let me (finish my book – I’m so close to the end now) sleep as long as I like, considering that he was away most of the week. The weather is foggy so I am not sure where he will take them, but that is not my concern. At all.

I assume the par-tay people do this all the time, stay up late and sleep in the day if at all, probably while wearing gorgeously ridiculous high heels and sculling martinis and such. And perhaps disco biscuits will be in there somewhere, too. I will need to make my own biscuits, but they will be sans disco, mostly oats, and perhaps cacao. I did have a nice nap yesterday afternoon, but that is not normally enough to see me through the whole night without sleep.

The only other time I stayed up all night was in the early 90s, at a sleepover, of course. But the next day I was exhausted and didn’t feel “in the moment” with my friends for much of the next day. So far I am very “in the moment” – I have had tea and breakfast, boys are mostly dressed and all are breakfasted, so I think that is all of my pressing business, until I can hit the hay in about 45 minutes.