Respect Sleep

I have a secret to share. Okay, maybe not so much a secret as a confession. My favorite thing to do....it's not read, or scrapbook....it's not drinking wine or ever better scrapdrinking (do I need to define that?). No, none of these are my favorite pass time, although those are up there on the things I like list. My favorite hobby is sleeping. Yep. Sleeping. Do you see the irony in this as I do live in the House of No Sleep? Years ago....BK (before kids) I used to sleep like I was going for the gold medal in the sleeping Olympics. BK I used to sleep till at least 10-12 on days that I did not have to work. On weekdays I would come home and catch a quick cat nap on the couch. When I lived alone in my post college-pre Joe apartment I actually had a navy blue blanket nailed to my window so that I could sleep into the afternoon without knowing it was light outside. When Joe and I moved in together it would drive me crazy that for no reason whatsoever other then to annoy the hell out of me he would be up and ready to take on the word at 7AM on the weekends. Bugging me to go run errands with him. Pointing out to me how much we could get done before noon. AK (duh) I have even more respect for sleep then I did BK. To this day my son does not have much use for sleep. He did not sleep through the night until he was 18 months old. 18 long months of getting up with him in the middle of the night. For some reason the "ready to take on the world at 7am" man I married disappeared. He started to barter with me for Sleep in Days instead of being up and making coffee at 7am. I tried to tell him that it was WAY to late to start to respect sleep this late in the game....such a change in sleeping habits was just unacceptable to me. 2.5 years later along came another small person who did not respect sleep. She STILL does not sleep through the night. The only difference is her parents are so lazy that instead of fighting the battle (which she would indeed win) we just throw her in bed with us. Long gone are the days where sleeping in meant 10am....now sleeping in is 8am and we trade off days on the weekend. These past 3 days for some reason my kids slept till 730 and Joe and I thought we had died and gone to heaven. People let me tell you it is HARD to entertain your kids all day when all days starts most days at 5am. A friend asked me once if I was really playing with play-dough at 8am on a Sunday and I was like hell yes I am, we have already watched all the kid shows on the DVR. I have however learned of a new way to respect sleep. The nap. No no, not the power nap of my PK days...the loooooong naps I take on weekends with Mallory. Hey, they tell you to sleep when the baby sleeps....they did not specify how old that baby has to be. I nap with my daughter almost every weekend. I don't screw around with these naps either. I'm not talking about the half assed naps that Joe (non sleep respecter) takes on the couch with the TV on. I'm talking full on napping...jammies, in the bed, lots of pillow and covers. I think the only one in the house who respects sleep as much (if not more) then I do is Scarlet. Not because she is 300 years old...she has always been this way. Scarlet has been known to wait at the edge of the hall and stare at you around bedtime....as in "hey assholes, it's time...let's go" Scarlet gets so flipping excited for weekend naps with Mallory that she makes it up the stairs before we do. Scarlet has been known to take a snap at Joe in the mornings when he tries to get her to let her out to go potty. And as I told you here sleeping with Scarlet is at your own risk because you may lose a toe if you should dare touch her at the foot of the bed while she is sleeping....that is IF she is at the foot of the bed and not sharing your pillow.

Someday I will sleep in again. Maybe not till noon like I did PK but there will come a day in my future when the kids can make their own cereal and work the TV themselves. Until then....I will just have to settle for trading Sleep in Days of 8am with Joe and drinking a LOT of coffee.