Sleep

Ok, so I'm still catching up on my sleep from Middle School Camp. You'd think that I'd be all rested up by now, but I'm definitely not. Maybe that's because my sleep is a little complicated. Yes, I'll explain.

No, we don't have kids, so there is no midnight feeding or anything like that. There are, however, letting the dogs out as needed, taking my covers back from whoever has currently stolen them, moving the dogs from whatever inopportune position they've found, and ignoring all of the antics of the neighbors.

You see, I value my sleep, probably more than the average person. And those around me should value my sleep too. There are a few things in life that I don't handle well, and sleep depravation is one of them. Because if I don't get enough sleep, I get cranky. And when I'm cranky, I'm not as nice as I normally am (ha!). One thing I told Husband before we got married was that I would not be joining him in the illustrious Middle School tradition of the all-night lock-in. There's no way everyone would survive and have a good time if I was involved.

I am a night person, believe it or not. I would rather be up late than to turn in early whenever possible. If I'm up much past 10, I get my second wind and I'm ready to go again. I used to do my toughest homework while watching the Tonight Show. It was my best thinking time. Some people don't quite understand that whole concept. We'll call them "morning people."

My Dad is one of those "morning people." Dad holds fast to the belief that everyone should get up with the sun and go to bed along with it. His favorite phrase when coming to wake me up when I was a kid was, "You're burning daylight!" That made for some interesting wake-up calls in our house. You see, not only am I very fond of my sleep, I am a hard sleeper. You have to be when you grow up with 6 kids running around the house making all kinds of noise. Anyway, we had several interesting ways of being woken up. Several times I woke up on the floor, blankets and all, with Dad standing over me. "Would you like to wake up now?" he'd ask. He would claim that he'd been trying to get me up for some time. But if I had no recollection of it, was that my fault? Other times, I'd get some ice cold water poured into my ear (and usually down my neck) and subsequently get my hair and bed soaked in the process of getting up. Other times, it was the evil "dog pile" method; although the siblings didn't think that was much fun because I had all day to take it out on them.

The only problem with staying up late is getting up in the morning. I'm not so good at that, as you can tell, especially when I haven't had quite enough sleep. And honestly, no matter what time I get out of bed, I don't actually wake up until about 10am. That's probably a little disconcerting to a few of those "morning people" I work with who are all chipper at 8 in the morning. I'm fine at that time of the morning, really. I just prefer to be left alone.

It all comes down to this: The world is a happier place for everybody when I'm caught up on my sleep.