Synchronized Sleeping

Kids are awesome.  So awesome, in fact, that I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when my youngest leaves home in about 18 years.

Well, I do know one thing I plan to do.  Sleep.  The whole night through.  Without interruptions.  Won’t that be blissful?  Unless, of course, I’ve forgotten how to sleep by then.

I do get uninterrupted sleep occasionally – like when the planets are on the same side of the sun or something.  But that doesn’t happen very often.

It’s not my baby’s fault.  He’s a pretty good sleeper when he’s not sick or teething.  It’s my nocturnal preschooler who keeps me up late then climbs into our bed a few hours later, kicking my husband downstairs to sleep in the spare room.

Even when we all manage to synchronize the timing of our shut-eye, the sleeping habits of seven people don’t always mesh.  One of my children sleep-talks.  The other night she sat up in bed and yelled, “Who wants ice-cream?”  At least she’s friendly.  We also have a few snorers, a teeth-grinder, and the bed-roaming preschooler who prefers to sleep perpendicular while offering regular swift kicks to the head and stomach.

If you don’t have young children at home, please be kind to those of us who show up late with bleary eyes and tousled hair.  Just be thankful we’re there – with pants on.

And if you’re a new parent, take heed to the counsel “Sleep when your baby sleeps”.  Unless you luck out like my sister did and get children who sleep for 12 hours straight, it may be the last time in a while that you get to enjoy synchronized sleeping.