Parental Overtime

Despite the fact that parenting is a 24/7 gig, I have somehow bought into the notion that I should get off hours. This has resulted in me getting increasingly grumpy with every minute past bedtime that my little darlings are still. not. in. bed. Don't they know that I should be able to "clock out" by now? Why don't they respond to the same sorts of stink eye looks I used to so skillfully give customers who came into the store where I used to work at closing time? Why, despite the multiplicity of clocks and watches in my home and on my children's actual bodies, do they seem completely oblivious to the time? Apparently they don't understand how tired I am, that I don't get overtime pay (unless you count the ice cream that calls to me from the freezer especially loudly on nights like these). They don't understand how DONE I am about 2 hours before bedtime so that every nanosecond they try my patience after really seems like hours of patience tried. There is always one more fight to referee, one more story to read, more water to dispense, and of course, the panicked "timely" notice that something must be purchased or made or had for school in the MORNING that no one mentioned until after bedtime.

But all this does eventually end and oh, the blissful, peaceful silence that results when they are all finally asleep. When they have succumbed and are quiet, at long last, there is so much I want to DO and I have energy for none of it. And the ultimate exercise of my own self control is to go to bed myself in a timely manner. Perhaps I am not so different than my children after all?