- Weight: 276.6
- BP: 128/84
puppy has never been very good with a required bedtime. Even when he was younger, he always managed to stay up later than when he was sent to bed, though his bedroom for a long time was his solace, his fortress. When he was sent to bed without supper (happened occasionally, usually warranted) it was ok for the most part, because the bedroom is where he wanted to be. Sitting in the corner was an anathema; but in his bedroom, oh the wonders that he could do there, that’s where his toys were. Naturally, since puppy grew up in the 1970s, a television in the bedroom would have been the height of lunacy, back then kids (unless they were obscenely rich, like the Rockefellers, or Astors or Hiltons) didn’t have such luxuries. A bed, a closet, toys, and a dresser were about the limit for a middle class boy of puppy’s age. And of course that was more than sufficient.
While puppy was an adult in his 20’s, he was mostly working overnights (3rd shift) so bedtime was when he could find the chance to sleep, as he was also looking after his parents instead of going off to find his way in the world and so on. Living at home, first caring for both parents, then when his mother died in 1989, just his father. At that time, Dad was in the first stages of Alzheimer’s, he had been forcibly retired from IBM in 1988, so he was home all the time, and puppy was too…because Dad had a propensity to wander, and needed to be watched. Too, puppy was working a full time job, so sleep was sort of catch, as catch can, whenever, and never enough, as evidenced by the time puppy lost his father. A story for another time.
Over the ensuing 30 years, puppy has mostly worked 3rd shift, with only recently in the last 10 starting to work 1st. Working first seems to make sleeping at least 6-8 hours easier, since puppy can gauge better a good bedtime and stick to it, though there are always things that might keep him from doing so, and it’s not as if he has any looming force over his head that says “go to bed right now” and be able to enforce it.
Although, on evenings that lead into off days, that kinda gets turned on it’s head. Since puppy did work 3rd for so many years, he can actually stay up all night without having too much of a problem, so there are times when he’ll not go to bed, even when his body is telling him he should, lounge around on the couch or in front of the desktop computer and hours will go by in the blink of an eye. At that juncture, say 3-4 am he should go to bed, but again doesn’t because his mindset is “don’t wake the SO” even though she’s told puppy time and again it’s not a problem, that she’ll just go back to sleep even if he does happen to wake her up. But that doesn’t sink in, so puppy will stay up another 4-5 hours and she’ll come downstairs finding puppy either awake or sleeping on the couch. Which wouldn’t be so bad, except for the fact puppy has sleep apnea and uses a CPAP machine and if he doesn’t use it, he’s logy and not very awake the remainder of the day. Which has ended up being a long running (and sometimes not very funny) joke, where she comes downstairs and puppy goes up. It’s not on purpose, even though sometimes it seems so. This is one habit that puppy really should break.
Last night was a little atypical, considering that puppy didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before because of a toothache; missed a day of work and spent most of the day sleeping. Puppy went to the couch around 8:30 and woke at midnight when SO came along and said it was time for bed, puppy agreed it was then fell asleep again and woke up at 3:45. Instead of going straight up, puppy went out to his computer and started browsing on Fetlife, going to other places and reading online, instead of sleeping, which helps with healing. That was a mistake. Puppy acknowledges it, and will hopefully use it as a learning experience for the future. Time will tell certainly.
puppy can learn, that much is true. Whether or not this will make a huge impact in the future remains to be seen.