Move Your Body

A survival guide

My 4-year-old son woke me up at 6 AM on Saturday morning. So even though he had an acceptable amount of sleep, I did not. He had a sitter scheduled for that evening, and the idea that I’d have two nights in a row with not enough sleep made me want to cry.

He has an okay-to-wake light that signals when it’s time to wake up. The wake-up time is 6:45 a.m. He wasn’t so far off, but losing those precious forty-five minutes felt like I was being deprived of oxygen. And so, as he pulled me out of bed with every trick he knows, my mood was something of an ogre.

I tried everything to plead with him on why sleeping until the blue light is so important. Sleeping is when you grow; sleeping repairs your brain and makes you smarter, sleeping keeps you healthy, and then the winner. Sleeping makes your muscles work better.

“It makes me faster?” He asked with a calculating look in his eyes.

“Yes, it’ll make you faster than all your friends.”

And that’s when I knew it was clicking for him. He told me he’s sleeping so much that he was even going back to sleep at that exact moment. That’s when he fake-snored for a few minutes, then woke up even faster.

All this cuteness, though, did nothing for my mood. I was already on my second cup of coffee and had to make it to 5 pm, where then my night would just begin for another five hours of being a charming adult.

I tried taking a shower, doing my hair and makeup, taking my son to all his activities, but nothing was changing my mood. And finally, it was 4:30 pm, I was dressed and ready for my night, and I looked at my son and asked a two-word question.

“Dance Party?”

He nodded yes, but made me promise we’d do loud songs. We started with a mom/son dance to our song, “You Are the Best Thing” by Ray LaMontagne, and worked our way through all sorts of classic rock.

Then the invisible weight on my chest started to shatter. With each move of my body, in synch with the music, the sways of my hips, the twirls, the lifting of my son, and twirling him, and suddenly the mood had lifted. The ogre left my body. The best parts of me were left behind. Glistening with sweat and the reminder. Dancing always helps.

Here’s our current dance party playlist. Just in case you need to find your way back to yourself.