Monday, August 6, 2012

Sleep--or Lack Thereof

People who say they sleep like a baby generally don't have one.
Leo J. Burke

Recently I have begun to measure the quality and quantity of my sleep by how much water I have left in my water bottle in the morning. Let me explain. Every night before bed I fill up my water bottle and place it on the bedside table. Then, each time I wake up to check on Tiny (or rather, each time Tiny wakes me up to demand a diaper change, a midnight snack, or just some moral support for his teething), I take a few sips of water. Which inevitably means that every time I get out of bed I'm also going to the bathroom--having two almost nine pound babies bounce around on my bladder for months on end did that to me. So, yes, when I wake up in the morning I can tell just how much or how little sleep I've gotten by how full my water bottle is.

Lately, it's been empty.

Interestingly enough, I can tell how well the Man has slept by how many random scraps of paper or old receipts or paper towels  covered in what I call "cop scrawl"are littering his bedside table. Because every night before bed the Man forgets to get a decent notebook and pen and put them on his bedside table for when he gets calls from the desk about whatever crazy thing has gone down on base. Instead, in the middle of the night, he scrounges around for whatever he can find and has been known to use important banking information or a receipt for some big ticket item that needs to be returned or some other not-so-blank surface to jot down the latest on-base crime. I love that he does this because the next day I get to be all Nancy Drewish and try to figure out what happened. I also love that I sleep through all of these phone calls but still get to hear all the best gossip when he gets home from taking care of what really did go down.

Anyway, lately, the Man's bedside table has been more than covered with papers of "cop scrawl".

All this means that we have been very tired. And I have been very crabby (the Man can subsist on significantly less sleep than I can--or maybe he's just a nicer person). And the fact that I'm still avoiding caffeine because I'm nursing doesn't help. But that's okay because when I don't get around to cleaning the house or exercising or doing anything else productive, I can just blame it on my lack of sleep instead of the fact that I just didn't feel like it. And then I can lounge around on the couch and be entertained by the Man.

1 comment:

Annie said...

Roo and I are similar-- that man goes to bed at 11:30 and wakes up at 5-- sometimes earlier. Me-- I go to bed at 10 and wake up at 6:30--- lol. And I still "have to have" my coffee in the morning!