When my head hits the pillow at night, I'm out. I don't toss and turn. My mind doesn't wander. I fall right to sleep.

And, I can fall asleep anywhere. I once fell asleep at a Reverend Horton Heat concert, and I hadn't even had one drink all night.

So why the dark circles under my eyes this week? While I don't have trouble falling asleep, I have a really hard time making myself go to bed.

It's nearly 11 p.m. and I told myself that I would be asleep, lights out, by 10 p.m. tonight. But guess what? I have a second wind and my house is quiet. My kids are asleep, my husband is out of town and the Internet is begging me to explore. An hour ago, I told myself I’d do some quick research for a project I’m working on and then go to bed.

Instead, I started chatting with a friend on Facebook, then wandered over to The Huffington Post, and got sucked in to watching another Katie Couric/Sarah Palin interview and reading celebrity gossip. The fix wasn’t enough so I soon found myself at People.com, where I saw an enticing ad from Jillian Michaels of The Biggest Loser fame that said she would help me get in shape and I mistakenly thought the program was free. I filled out the information required and then discovered I’d need to spend $19.95 so I skipped that and somehow ended up at The Daily Show, where I watched a few clips of this week’s show.

Now it’s past my bedtime and there is still a pile of laundry waiting to be folded on my bed.

If my husband were here, I would have been in bed an hour ago. He’s pretty diligent about making sure I get enough sleep, though I think that’s only because if I go to bed early enough, I won’t shake him from his sleep to get Maya when she wakes up before the sun rises in the morning. I get her myself.

He’s out of town, though, so it’s up to me to use self control and go to bed.

The problem is I’ve been like this all week, and my poor kids must be a little annoyed. When I was putting Maya down for a nap today, I fell asleep midway through singing “Rock-A-Bye Baby” at least three times. I awoke each time to my daughter’s sweet voice begging “sing ‘Rock-A-Bye’ again, please.”

Guillermo was lucky tonight because I managed to stay awake while reading to him. One night when I was reading to him I must have dozed off a bit because I heard myself tell him something about an upcoming U.S. Senate vote before I snapped out of whatever dream zone I had entered.

The worst part about this is I know how bad I’ll feel in the morning. But in the morning, the house will be noisy and I’ll have kids and chores to tend to. Right now, the only noise I hear is my fingers on the keyboard and the only responsibility I have is to get myself to sleep.

Natalie appears Sundays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Natalie at her blog A Day at the Park.