There's a monster under my bed

When my children were little it would take forever to get them to go to sleep.  Close friends of ours had a militant routine and their children would actually ask to go bed every night at 8 o'clock on the dot.  No such luck in our house. No such luck at all...  Our routine involved innumerable bedtime stories.  Bedtime stories from mummy, bedtime stories from daddy and definitely bedtime stories from any sucker relative or friend silly enough to make the rookie mistake of still being at our house after seven forty-five... it was a dangerous place to linger.
Glass after glass of water was delivered to cries of "but mum, I'm still thirsty", there were more encores than at an Elton John concert and finally, finally there was the peaceful silence of sleep.  To be entirely honest by that stage I was generally face down on the couch in a small pool of saliva after a seventeen hour day, the witching hour and a bottle of wine. I would eventually stumble like a sedated bear, hip- bumping the door frame then flopping gracelessly into bed.
Last night was the first night in a very long time that I tried to do something that proved harder than I imagined, go to sleep.  Not pass out, not just have a couple to wind down, not even popping a few of my husbands anti-histamines that make me so drowsy, so deliciously drowsy I wish I had allergies.  Just sober sleep.  So far, not so good.  I am hoping this is just a phase.  I tend to have constant Monkey Brain- I can't ever seem to turn it off and the more tired I am the less rational it becomes.  I once went to a Yin Yoga class and it nearly killed me, an hour with my racing thoughts is a very long way from the place called zen.  I tried to sleep for what felt like days and then when I slept I had nightmares that terrified me and left me in a cold sweat (or maybe that's detox) I even felt like my eyes were playing tricks on me.  What have I done to my body for so long?  I really just want my own mum to put a cool hand on my forehead and tell me there are no monsters under the bed.  As there is no chance of that happening, maybe tonight I will have to check before I get in.


On the plus side, today is day 2
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