Dealing with Don'twannaitis, Part 1

I confess:  I suffer from a really bad case of don'twannaitis.

It usually hits about 11 o'clock in the morning, as I'm making my kids lunch and looking at storytime and naps.  The thought runs through my mind "I just want to curl up on the bed and read my book and take a nap."

I feel sluggish and sleepy.  My kids still wake me up at least once in the night and we are usually up by 6:30 at the very latest.  I am most productive first thing in the morning, and, with four kids, usually hit the floor running.  By nap time, I've run out of energy, desire and motivation.

Unfortunately, there are still things to be done, and I must be the one to do them, don'twannaitis aside.

So, what is the cure?

First of all, one of the things that has helped me to send away the symptoms of don'twannaitis is to...curl up on the bed and take a nap!  Yes, really.  I used to be one of those moms who thought "I must do this, this and this.  And 'idle hands are the devil's workshop' so I must keep busy!  That's what good keepers of the home do."  And I would go, go, go until I just collapsed.  And then I would have a total and complete relapse of don'twannaitis, usually so bad that it would undo any progress that I had made.

Finally I decided that I had had enough.  In the recesses of my mind I recalled my working woman days and hearing something about workers who were allowed to take short naps being more refreshed and productive.  The advice was to avoid a long sleep, because that might make you more groggy, but a cat nap should help to clear the fog.

I decided to try it.  After I put the boys down for a nap, I set my alarm for 30 minutes and laid down.  It worked!  Some days those 30 minutes went so fast and I didn't want to wake up.  But I did.  And after I got up, I felt better physically and mentally, enough to then focus on doing the next thing.

Come back next week for Part 2:  Knowing What the Next Thing Is, or The Routine