Friday Night Fatigue

When I was working my first full-time job right out of college, my friend Loretta and I used to refer to the bone-deep exhaustion that we felt at the end of each work week as "Friday Night Fatigue."

There were some Friday nights that we'd hit a Happy Hour at a local bar or restaurant after work, and then we'd head home to crash when it was over. And yes, the Happy Hours were usually over by 7 p.m. Eventually, we got used to the demands of a regular work week, and Friday night wasn't quite as exhausting. But it was still a night where we sometimes felt more like collapsing than playing.

Fast forward 15 years... a couple of hours ago, I was sitting at the dinner table while William told me about Batman missions and Andrew shovelled peas into his mouth, and a wave of exhaustion washed over me. Granted, I'm not as tired in general now that Andrew is a big boy who sleeps through the night, but I'm still pretty tired by 6 or 7 p.m. each evening. And that goes doubly for Friday evenings. Especially on Fridays when I'm crazy enough to take both boys to the grocery store before dinner. (We needed yogurt, bananas, and bread. And peas. And $70 worth of other stuff.)

How is it that my children ramp up even more in the evenings, just when I'm starting to shut down? The sheer amount of noise that William was making tonight in the bathtub was just astounding. How does he have that much energy? He was in preschool all week. Shouldn't he be tired, too?

Good old Friday Night Fatigue. I'm not the only one in my household who feels it, either. I bet, when I go upstairs in a few minutes, that David will be sacked out on the playroom couch. He was going to watch one of the SEC tournament basketball games, but I bet he conked out. It's like by a certain age, if you sit still for more than a certain amount of minutes, you just fall asleep. You're powerless to resist. Your body shuts down. And in David's case, he operated on a major sleep deficit for years during residency. He may never catch up.

'Nighty-night.