Ah Sleep

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book.

~Irish Proverb~

I love to sleep. Especially now that it's winter. I wish I could sleep from New Year's Day until the first day of spring. Of course I'd miss my and my two daughters birthdays, but hey, small price to pay to catch up on my sleep.

When I was really young, grade school days, I was an early riser. In high school not so much. It was torture getting up for school. And for work on the weekends. But I did it, you do what you have to do. Out of high school I got a job working nights. I worked the 8pm-8am shift 4 days a week, occasionally 5 days a week when they required OT. On my 2 or 3 days off, I rarely reverted back to a normal schedule, it was too hard to switch back and forth. So I lived a Vampire's life for a few years. After two years I had enough seniority to switch to the day shift. So I worked 8am-8pm. That was hard, making the switch. Morning was not my friend. But even then I still didn't need much sleep. On my days off I waitressed, often working until midnight, and then I would hit the bars with my friends. And then have to get up for work the next morning. But I did it.

Then I had kids. I did sleep with my babies, so it's not like I was up all night walking the floors or making bottles. I nursed. So while it was fairly easy to nighttime parent, I still woke up, a lot. My second daughter was needier than my first, so for about 5 years I never slept straight through the night. Then I put my girls in pre-school, so we had to be up early and had some place to be. And I worked at the pre-school, so I actually had to be presentable when I brought them in. After I left the pre-school job and started homeschooling, I told my DH that I would still get up with him in the morning as a show of solidarity. He has to get up and go to work for us to stay home, the least I can do is get up and make him lunch and coffee and see him out the door.

Since 2000 or so, DH has needed to leave the house around 6:50am to get to work on time. So we'd get up around 6:20am. Still a little on the early side for me, but at least most of the time the sun was on it's way up. On days the girls and I had nowhere to be, I often went back to bed. Rarely would I fall back to sleep, but it was nice having the option to go back to bed for a while.

Recently, thanks to the auto industry and my DH working in it, he has had to start work at 6am. START WORK AT 6AM! That means he needs to leave the house by 5:20 or so. Which means we are up at 4:50. 4:50AM! And no, the sun is nowhere near up. I love my husband, but this 4:50am thing is pushing it. Another online friend, Stephanie, just posted on her blog how she rarely GOES to bed before 4am. She's going to bed when I'm getting up. We should IM each other, I'll wish her goodnight as she wishes me good morning! Hopefully this thing with hubby's job won't go on much longer. I need my sleep!

I definitely do go back to bed after he leaves at 5:20am, but I have a really hard time falling back to sleep. Rarely do I fall back to sleep before 6:30am or so. And then I don't want to sleep all day, so I try to get up by 9am. But I hate getting such disjointed sleep. I want a good solid 8, all in a row dammit! DH can survive on 5-6 hours of sleep. So when we got up at 6:20am, he'd watch TV until midnight the night before. Now that we have to get up at 4:50am, he watches TV until 10:30-11pm. So when the alarm goes off, I haven't had my solid 8. I never get my solid 8.

If I had my way, (if it was a perfect world), I would probably go to sleep each night around 10:30-11pm and get up between 8-9am. 8-10 hours of sleep. It sounds so lovely. My body just craves sleep lately. I am tired all the time. I think I am paying for the mistakes of my youth. I think our body must keep a sleep log. If you deprive it too long, it is going to demand payback. I think my body is calling it in right now. Which is why I wish I could sleep all winter. Then I could wake up refreshed and ready to go, just like a bear. And maybe I'd burn off some stored fat while I was at it. Sounds like a win-win to me. Ah to sleep.

The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more. ~Wilson Mizener~