In this entry I randomly select a song title from my itunes library as a writing prompt.

Song title: “Never Gonna Leave This Bed” by Maroon 5 

I can’t say that I enjoy NOT being a morning person, but I also have come to realize that I cannot fight my “bio-ribbons,” (as one daughter calls biorhythms.) Contrary to what I used to think — as a teenager, college student, employee, wife, then mother — you don’t necessarily morph into a morning person when you “grow up.”

It’s kind of like growing up itself, actually. Over time, as you gradually adopt all the accoutrements of adulthood — a job, a professional wardrobe, a rent payment, a husband, a house, a dog-as-first-child — one day you find that everyone thinks you really are a grown-up. And you think, “I’ve fooled them.”

So it is being a night owl who must moonlight as a morning person. You wake up at 6:30 a.m., rouse the kids, make breakfast, rush out the door, and weave and bob through traffic to get to school on time. You go to that meeting about making snacks for the teachers and race to yoga so you can squeeze in your de-stressing and detoxing. You feel energized enough to go make that stultifying grocery store run. You walk the dog in the sun-filled park. You perk up just in time for the afternoon carpool.

But sometimes, after that morning carpool … you go back to bed.

Yes, on rare occasions, when I have that little pocket of time after morning drop-off and no appointments or responsibilities (glaring ones, at least), I’ve driven back home, beelined upstairs and flopped into bed. This is particularly the case if it’s been an unfortunate “no-coffee” morning — if my husband, who usually makes the coffee, is away and we’ve had a searching-all-over-for-the-math-homework-that-was-just-in-the-backpack kind of mornings.

This return to sleep doesn’t happen nearly as often as I’d like. But I like knowing it’s in the universe of possibilities. It feels illegal, in a good way.

Further confession: I’ve even found a quiet place near my children’s school to park the car, set my phone alarm, and tilt my seat back for a 10-minute catnap. Yes, I feel like those cabbies you sometimes see catching winks in their car, and I can relate.

Once, when the twins were infants, I remember arriving home bleary-eyed from an afternoon of errands with them both sound asleep in their car seats. A friend’s car was temporarily occupying our one-car garage, so I parked in front of our house, cut off the engine, cracked the windows, and reclined my seat for a siesta. Why fight it?

A few days later I ran into my neighbor, who smiled a little as she said, “I saw you in the car the other day. You and the babies — all asleep.” Her eyes widened.

Trying not to show how embarrassed I was, I just smiled back and murmured something about “If you can’t beat ‘em…”

I think our world would be a more peaceful, serene place if we openly embraced the idea of the catnap. Luminaries such as John F. Kennedy and Leonardo DaVinci apparently did. In fact, how about adding napping rooms to every Starbucks? If that tall, grande or venti latte’s not doing the trick, you could order up a 10, 20 or 30-minute nap. Extra dark. Eye pillow included.