Brain shut down has a name

It's called "micro sleeping".

I saw a blip on abc this morning that described it.

It is exactly my conversation with Hubby every trip home from Logan.

I call it "my brain shut down".

When I am driving late at night, I can tell when it's time to turn over the driving to

Hubby when the lights on the cars and lights on anything get distorted and turn into what looks like forks.

Our trips to Logan, however, I am sleep deprived before the trip even starts.

I can't fall to sleep till about 2 a.m. when we need to get up at 4 a.m.

Then we drive home the same day just 20 hours later.

Hubby and I will take turns driving home when someone gets too tired to continue.

I described my need to stop driving as "my brain shut down."

My eyes are still fine, no distortion with the lights, 

but I can't get the car to turn when it needs

to turn. My eyes are still open, but it's like I lose consciousness.

So, now that I saw that story on abc, I now know that it is called "micro sleeping."

It is the number one cause of accidents when people are driving tired.

Our last trip to Logan was a little different.

We took ALL the kids. 

We had our "connection" get us all tickets to the championship football game at 1 p.m.

and he also got us tickets to the basketball game at 7 p.m.

All for free.

After the basketball game, we did something we don't normally do: 

we took a nap in the game room of

Kyson's dorm house.

We didn't leave till midnight as usual,

but this trip, we were both out of safe driving skills by 4:00 a.m.

We were only to Beaver, so we checked in with our SDABUS

"Sleepy Driving Adults' Back-Up System."

His name is Koby, and he is 16!

He is normally up at that time everyday anyway going to swimming practice.

He was tired still too, but he was able to drive us home from Beaver.

I don't let my young drivers drive our whole family in the car on long trips

for several reasons:

It puts either Hubby or myself in the back with the pack.

The seats in the back don't recline.

The seats are a lot less comfortable.

I can't sleep in a car unless it is Hubby driving or my dad. 

(weird, I think it has to do with trust and feeling safe.

 I could never sleep on the school bus on long trips either.)

{I should probably note that I don't sleep well with Hubby driving either.

 I wake at every turn taken too fast, or every town with lights,

 or every wiggle wobble while passing another car,

 AND EVERY LANE CHANGE! Yes, I am yelling. 

I finally had to ask him to stop using the blinker every time he changed lanes 

when there was no one around to see the blinker. lol  It always wakes me up.}

If something happened, it would put a lot of guilt on a youngster.

There's too much (like 9 of us) at stake.

Kyson wanted to drive us up to Logan, but I wouldn't let him.

He felt under appreciated, especially when he found out that Koby drove home.

We are always in a hurry to get to Logan.

It always takes me longer to get stuff together than I thought.

I won't allow my teenagers to drive when there is intentional speeding involved.

:)

Besides, the price of insurance going up because of the speeding ticket

 just past Toquerville will be less for a 45 year old man,

 than it will for an 18 yr-old man. :)

PS. I sleep a lot better in the car now that I've figured out how to keep 

the lights from every town out of my eyes:

I use a headband that is designed to keep ears warm and pull it down over my eyes!