Goodnight...Sleep (Air)Tight

by Cathy

Ahhh...summertime. We Chicagoans wait nine months before summer births itself to us in the truest sense of the word. I've enjoyed the cooler than scorching temps this summer had to offer but seeing as the heat and humidity are raging this week, I'm encountering the dreaded domestic conflict that comes with turning on the A/C.

What's the problem with doing what every other warm-blooded human does when the heat and humidity reach 100%, you ask? The fact that my husband prefers to sleep in a tomb. In fact he prefers to live in a tomb. When he's home alone, the lights are never on, the windows are never open, the air is stifling and he's couch-hunched in the dark living room covered in a blanket sipping on tea. My teenager is exactly the same way, I am coming to discover recently. I'm sorry but I was not made to live and sleep in a Rubbermaid container of a house.

Bedtime in summer has come to be one of the biggest points of contention in my relationship. Who knew that once the bedtime struggles with the kids ended, I'd have THIS bedtime struggle to contend with? Since the hubby refuses the turning on of the A/C unless it's 100% humidity, 0% wind and temps in the 90s at midnight, I have to live with having the windows open. He lays there wrapped in a down comforter and I, parched tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, an ocean building between my boobs (or as I like to refer to it, "A River Runs Through Them") literally basting in bed, sweat slowly building an outline of my body around me on the sheets.

I throw my covers over on top of him, zombie walk my way to the thermostat and when the click of the air kicks in, the hubby spurts out some tongue clicking of his own and robotically reaches for the down comforter - yes, that still sits at the end of our bed in the midst of summer - and envelopes himself in it like a bear hunkering down for the winter.

I've spent countless summer nights sleepwalking my way back and forth from the thermostat lest I cause anyone in the house to catch their "death of a cold", always concerned about turning the dial to juuuuusssttt the right temperature where it kicks in periodically but not toooooo often. I've awoken after those mornings from my half-assed sleep looking like a slicked up pufferfish.

The other day my girls and I got into my mother-in-law's car and the air was turned up to "freezer" on the dial. Even I thought it was a smidgen chilly. They mouthed to me from the backseat that "it's freezing in here!" and hugged themselves into the embryo position, teeth chattering. I, on the other hand, was sprawled out in the front seat enjoying the blast of cool air all while wondering how my husband managed to grow up in a house where his mother enjoyed (gasp!) turning on the A/C. I looked over at my mother-in-law knowingly and thought, "She gets it. She's normal!" Then I promptly decided that age and A/C levels are in direct proportion to each other; the older you get, the higher the A/C gets cranked.

And you know what that means....it will all be tomb much for husband. That's when I'll tell him to go sleep at his mom's house.

Moonraker of Chicago

by Cathy

I've mentioned before on this blog about how city living comes with its disadvantages when it comes to sleeping and how we wait all winter to throw our windows open, only to have to shut them lest we turn into zombie insomniacs a la World War Z.

After years of this, however, we start to become immune to some of those noises: lawn mowers, leaf blowers, barking dogs, chatty, early-risin' neighbors, equally early and energetic kids, 20 variations of chirping birds, garbagemen's whoops and hollers, garbage truck's BEEP BEEPing to back up and even the occasional firework (or gunshot). But last night, we encountered a new one.

It was about 11:30 and we had just settled our tired bones into bed when we hear SCRAPE, SCRAPE, SCRAPE.
Half asleep, I muttered to Joe, "Are you shifting your feet against the covers?"
"No, that's from outside."
"Huh?" I shot up in bed and leaned my ear towards the open window.
SCRAPE, SCRAPE, SCRAPE.
"What the..."
"It sounds like someone is digging something," offers Joe.
Okay that was comforting. Yet we didn't move either because we were too scared or too tired. A few minutes later we heard it again. Then again. Then....yet, again.
"That's it," said Joe, throwing off the covers. "My curiosity is gonna get the best of me."
He shuffles into the living room, dislodges the balcony door from its rain-soaked door frame and minutes later, lets out a sharp whistle.
Then, silence.
He shuffles back and says, "It's the guy two doors down. He's raking."
"Raking!?! Raking what?"
"I dunno, leaves...." Joe's illogical mumbling trails off towards the kitchen.
"LEAVES? In June?" I got up to see this for myself.

Can't sleep? Try this!!

Sure enough, in the light of the foggy yet brightly-lit full moon, the dude had a rake and was scraping it on whatever he was raking. Grass? Rocks? Gravel? His sidewalk? I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I went back and checked the clock. 11:47pm. Was this guy nuts? Was he Dexter from the hit HBO series?
After some contemplation about calling the police, we just decided to...what else....shut the window in order to get some shut-eye. Sure enough, as what often happens when we shut the windows in the summer to take slumber over noise, I woke up in a pool of sweat a few hours later and re-opened the window. I stopped short to listen for any other sounds. Ahhhhh, sweet silence.

Yet another night of sleep-seeking in the city. I just never thought that midnight raking from an insomniac looney down the street would be added to the list of things to keep us awake. Yet again, this is city living. This is Chicago.

Let Sleeping People Lie

by Cathy

'If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?'

We've all heard some variation of the above phrase.
Therefore, I got to thinking that similarly, if we snore/whisper/talk/scream/fart/teeth-grind/walk/jerk in our sleep, do we realize it?

We've all no doubt been told by those who sleep in the same room with us that we _______ in our sleep.  And of course, we vehemently deny these antics occur because, duh, we're asleep...what the hell do we know? Yet we insist:
"Hell, NO I don't _________ in my sleep!"

Now, I know that I don't scream in my sleep. How can I be so sure, you ask, since I'm asleep? Because when I've tried, I've awoken myself in the half-ass throes of a scream that won't come out and ends up sounding more like a crackled moan, as if I've been crawling through the Sahara for days without water.

For this reason, what happened the other night baffles me to no end. While in a rare, deep, much needed sleep, I hear a faint whisper.  

"Cathy....Cathy..."

Now if anyone experiences this while asleep, they would no doubt wake up fully expecting to see the Blair Witch and her Project. This is exactly what happened to me. I awoke with such a freaked-out start, scaring myself even more by expelling the loudest, longest, most horrifying gasp I ever knew I was capable of making, while my arms formed continuous air circles out in front of me.

WHAT THE F@*$K????

I opened my eyes way wider than normal, frantically searching for the source of these eerie whispers. In full-on horror flick mode, I swear to you, I made out the figure of my older daughter Bella hovering over my bed clutching her pillow and Cuddles. But she was just standing there, not speaking a word.
"What. What?!!" I kept saying so as not to scream as my instincts were telling me to.
Bella is known for silently sneaking into our bedroom at night, standing by my side of the bed and whispering at me if she can't sleep/ feels sick/what have you. I thought this was one of those moments. But why would she call me Cathy?

With every blink of my crazed eyes, the outline of her figure was diminishing. My brain was desperately attempting to sort out the dream/reality/mirages of what it was being overloaded with within that one minute. Then I figured it out. I turned to Joe.

"Did you just say my name?"
"Yes," he replied flipping his ass towards me in exasperation.
"WHY?!"
"Because you were screaming in your sleep."
"What?!" I replied, again desperately asking myself if I was still dreaming, because, of course, I know that 'Hell, NO I don't scream in my sleep!'
"You were screaming," he insisted.
"No. I. Wasn't! What was I screaming?"
Then he says: "Honey...Honey..."
WTF? Was HE the one dreaming now?!?!?
"Is that what I was screaming out?" I had to verify before I diagnosed one of us as officially cray-cray.
"Yes." He clicked his teeth with his tongue in that annoying, freaking way, as he was now annoyed because I was asking him why the hell he whispered me awake like the Poltergeist to tell me that I was supposedly screaming in my sleep.

"Are you sure YOU weren't the one who was dreaming this? 'Cuz I never scream in my sleep. I can't even if I wanted to."
"No. Just go back to sleep."
"How the hell am I supposed to sleep NOW? I was sleeping sooooooo good..." I whined as I fluffed my pillow.


As I lay there, listening to my eyes break the silence with every blink, trying desperately to find that sweet slumber that has now cruelly escaped me, I gave some thought to the consequences of waking people out of their sleep. I concluded that we should all just let the snorers snore, the teeth grinders grind, the farters fart, the screamers scream, the walkers walk. After all, if they can't sense it, they're not doing it. It's just so much easier if we remove ourselves from the proverbial forest and pretend we didn't hear that tree fall.

I'll Stress Tonight, You Worry Tomorrow

by Cathy

I've always been jealous of the fact that my husband has been a good sleeper. And by this, I don't mean that he sleeps through the night without wailing himself awake because he's sick or has to go to the bathroom or he had a bad dream. That's covered by my kids on the occasional blue moon. What I mean is, no matter how bad a day he's had, no matter what happened right before he put his head down on that pillow, he instantly falls asleep. How many nights have I laid there next to him, exasperated, sighing loudly and cursing under my breath that he has the ability to do this? Countless.

For me, apparently, bedtime somehow translates into "Let's get this party started!" in my brain. That is when I think/stress about to-do lists, done lists, projects, bills, family, work and every other big thing that looms gargantuan, shadowing me in the still and dark of night to the point where I slide under my covers, squeeze my eyes shut and wish it away. So I toss and turn and get up to use the bathroom, check to make sure doors are locked, check on the kids, fluff my pillow countless times, put on some socks, take the socks off, nudge Joe to stop snoring (because honestly, is that really helping me here?!) turn the blinds totally shut in my room, and finally physically get pen and paper to jot down the eight million random thoughts that have found their way to me via Insomnia Road. All I need is confetti and a drink (which I've been very tempted to have depending on how long I've been stressing over stuff when I should be sleeping) and I can have myself a one-woman party!

I've always been aware, however, that Joe wakes up much earlier than I do. I always thought, for obvious reasons, that it was because he falls asleep much sooner than me and also, because when I met him, he boasted about how he likes getting up early enough to watch the sunrise and what a productive day you can have when you're an early riser! Yeah, yeah, blah, blah. I like to sleep in because when I finally DO fall asleep, I wanna milk that cow for all it's worth. Plus, watching the sunset isn't a shabby second option.

So I was amazed when I recently discovered that he gets up thinking about work and "stuff". He wakes up worried which is just as bad as going to sleep stressed. Was I a little relieved and, dare I say, secretly happy that I wasn't the only one stressing over things, making mountains out of mountains? I would lie if I said I wasn't. It's sadly comforting to know that he worries and stresses about everything I do. It makes me feel not-so-neurotic and strangely, that we are on the same page with things. His mind just jumpstarts the process at a different time of day.

Now that we know how each is hardwired, we will continue to share the burden of our stress while we attempt to put out these monstrous, sleep-stealing fires and work on preventing others from starting. We will take shifts and bear the weight of our worries on each of our respective shoulders, as the other revels in sweet, much-needed slumber. After all, we would be useless zombies if we were both on the same stress schedule. Funny how nature works, eh? But for us, this works. And that stress-sharing accommodation? That's just part of what marriage is all about.

Ritz Carlton gone RONG!

by Patti & Cathy

From the moment we start school, it seems our lives are constantly interrupted by alarm clocks. We have all, at one time or another, slept through an alarm, or woken frantically to a blinking alarm, or even just plain forgot to set an alarm.

Whatever the case, we don't set alarms for kicks. Most of the time, we set alarms because we need to get yanked out of our sleep for a good reason. How that "yanking" occurs - or whether or not it occurs it all - can set the tone for an entire day.

Cathy:
I've scheduled my share of hotel room wake-up calls in my lifetime, (that sounds way worse than implied) but never did I experience what I did on this recent trip to Aruba. I relied on my cell phone to wake me up for three of the four mornings I was there, but decided that I should use the wake-up service on the morning of my departure as a back-up. You know, in case I overslept and waaaahhhh, waaaahhhh, I was stuck in Aruba.

As I had been doing every morning I was there, I woke up before my alarm was set to go off. Well aware I was about to leave paradise, I was luxuriating in the giant, cloud-like bed, desperately trying to cling to the chillaxed vacation mode I easily cultivated the past few days. As I relished the sun's beams streaming in on my face and the sounds of the waterfall coming from the pool below, the phone RONGED. Not rang, but more of a ringing GONG. (I get that they need to be loud enough to wake the heaviest of lead sleepers, but I always experience a mini heart attack when this happens.)

The Gong gone Rong.

Grumbling at the interruption and cursing at myself for not remembering to cancel the wake-up call, I slid across the fluffiness and picked up the phone. From across the line came the Caribbean accent of a chirpy woman. "Ms. Demetropopoboulos," she stumbled. "This is your seven o'clock..."
Yeah, yeah. I know.
I hung up the phone.
Immediately upon hang-up, it RONGED again.
What the...?
"Hello?"
"This is your seven o'clock wake..."
Click. Yes, I got it.
And then? Then, it RONGED again.
Holy Caribbean Islands, I was being stalked by the wake-up woman.
"HeLLO," I said flatly.
 "Ms. Demetropopoboulos," I let her struggle. "Are you aware that this is your wake-up call?" she inquired authoritatively.
Are you aware that I have no choice BUT to wake up since you've called me three times back to back? Who was this lady, my mother?!
"Uh...yes. Yes, I am," I replied, wondering if she was that serious about her job or was this a power struggle at this point. "Thank you for your diligence." Click.

I stared at the phone sideways, ready to pounce on it like a tiger to its prey, if it ronged again. But it didn't. The wake-up lady done did her job and woke my luxuriating ass up. Goodbye, vacation. Hello? Reality. RONG!!!

Patti
I'm going to confess something right here: I have trust issues. Yep, I said it. In the words of Tony Montana, "Who do I trust? ME." It's horrible, I know, but it is what it is. I have just witnessed so much incompetence in my life (NO, I'm not a perfectionist, why do you ask?) that I have kind of learned to not trust people to get the job done right. I'm a suspicious, cynical, side-eye givin' girl, and I know that about myself. WHICH is why it is so very strange that several weeks ago, when I had the luxury of sleeping at the Ritz! Carlton! for several nights by! my! self!, I chose to use the Ritz! Carlton's! wake-up call service to rouse me out of bed my first morning.

I had a meeting "first thing", and the day before had been a long one that consisted of a 6 am airport arrival, bumpy flight, and getting settled in for days of meetings, so needless to say, I was tired, and I knew I was tired, yet, because it was the Ritz! Carlton! I had an innate sense they would not screw it up.

"Good evening, Ms. Pudaydah" greeted the silky voice that probably had to audition for the job as the Ritz! Carlton! wake-up call lady. And no, that is not how you spell my last name, but apparently, my wake-up call lady, much like Cathy's, has trouble pronouncing last names with Latin flare. Mattered not, though; I was just impressed she knew who I was. That alone led me to believe I could certainly trust the Ritz! Carlton! to do their job.
"Yes, I need a wake-up call for 6:30 am, please."
"Why certainly, Ms. Pudaydah. Have a nice night!"
"I will!"

And I did. I attempted to watch a little television, as somehow the same shows that I might watch at home are far more entertaining when watched from a bed laden with 4,000 ergonomic pillows and covered in ten billion count cotton sheets. Ah, Ritz! Carlton! Feeling my eyes grow heavy, I briefly debated setting a back-up alarm on my cell phone, and then decided that the Ritz! Carlton! was all about customer service, and would never in a million years NOT perform a wake-up call as requested. Satisfied, and wrapped in my cozy, fluffy Ritz! Carlton! robe, I soon fell blissfully asleep.

These things seep drugs into your pores. 

Before I knew it, my eyes flew open. Light streamed in through the gauzy Ritz! Carlton! curtains, and I felt immediate panic. WHY IS IT LIGHT OUTSIDE WHY IS IT LIGHT OUTSIDE WHY IS IT LIGHT OUTSIDE. I flung my body toward my charging cell phone: 7:00 am. Can it BE? Had the Ritz! Carlton! FAILED ME? I threw off the fluffy white comforter and darted to the shower. As I hurriedly shampooed and soaped and tried to blink awake under the perfect water pressure of the Ritz! Carlton! shower head, I concluded that, indeed - Ritz! Carlton! or not, who do I trust? ME.

I hurried through the rest of my "getting ready", annoyed that I had allowed a plush name wrapped in a tricky, sleep-inducing robe to do me in. Apparently, my Ritz! Carlton! had gone wrong instead of RONG!

Wake Up! I'm Back

by Cathy

The second morning I returned from my trip, my inner clock jarred me awake. It was still dark out so it wasn't time to get up just yet. Was it?

'Come on,' I grumbled to myself as I tossed and turned in place. I knew that I was up because of the time zone difference between Aruba and Chicago. And on top of that, we had the daylight savings hour to contend with so now I was TWO hours off.
What time was it anyway?

I turned to look at my alarm clock and was greeted by 3:45 blinkety-blinking at me.
"What the...?"
I nudged Joe. "We had a power outage in the middle of the night."
"What?" Joe snorted awake. "What happened? What time is it?"
"Hold on, let me check my phone." Luckily it was still on and sitting on my nightstand.
"6:15? Wow, I thought it was much earlier. Glad I woke up or we would have overslept!"

So then we tried to sleep that limbo sleep where you want to get some more rest but you can't let yourself fully sleep lest you sleep too long - after all, it was rather close to our 7am wake up call - but no use. Our minds and bladders were reeling. I got up to go to the bathroom and in passing our alarm system, I heard BEEP. I hadn't heard it until then, but that doesn't mean it hadn't been going off since the power outage. I padded into the bathroom and 30 seconds later, BEEP. How long was this going on?

I grumbled at the third BEEP in two minutes. So I walked over to the alarm keypad and with one eye still shut, I started pressing buttons. In no particular order, in no code formation. Just kept pressing them but to no avail. I began using both hands now and in the process, I inadvertently hit the two buttons retained for Panic Mode.

No, no need to panic. It's just me, half asleep, pressing alarm keypads at the ass-crack of dawn.

Before I knew it, sirens were blaring and lights were flashing. The girls were out of bed and dragging into the hallway half in fear of their lives and half wanting to go back to bed. Joe was out of bed asking what was going on and shooing the girls back to bed while I was "this close" to pulling the alarm keypad out of the wall to make it stop. Thoughts of my condo neighbors running to my front door in their night clothes, bedhead hair and bad breath were running through my head as I frantically, now fully WIDE awake, tried to make the sirens stop. Please, please, please don't let the police show up! I was fully expecting my house phone to start ringing off the hook.


Then, it hit me.The fuse box!!! I opened the furnace room and clicked every fuse down the panel until I found the one connected to the alarm box. Thankfully, it stopped. And thankfully? No police, no neighbors and no phone calls.

"Well, I guess we're officially up now!" Joe said.
"My God, a few minutes ago we were sound asleep! But thank goodness I got up because we would've totally overslept today."
"Yup, you made sure THAT didn't happen," he replied.
Ahhhhh....good to be home again.

Pillow Talk

by Cathy

Ever since Bella was born (actually, since she was a toddler) I have had to lay with her - and now my younger daughter - to fall asleep at night. Why? Because we have trained them this way. Not because that's how we intended this to go. We did not intend to spend hours upon hours of precious, free time sitting in a half-lit room staring at the strange light designs on the ceiling made by that giant star hanging on the wall. Hours that could have been spent doing much needed housework or taking advantage of even more needed "me" time or "couple time". No siree.

Bella was a finicky sleeper. She did just fine as a baby and I was even able to "nap when the baby naps". But as she entered her toddler years and became cognizant that she would be sleeping alone, she morphed into a very troubled sleeper. She repeatedly got up, dragging her exhausted little body out of her toddler bed and into the living room where I would be practically hiding under the couch cushions so that she could just return to bed and put herself to sleep. Because I knew...I KNEW...that once I entered that room and sat on that floor next to her bed, it would still take her centuries to fall asleep. She even caught me trying to crawl out more than a few times, (picture that pretty scene, would you?) whereupon I had to start the whole ordeal over again since she was now traumatized that I would leave her.

Many a night would I sit on that floor, sometimes literally crying tears of frustration at how this process had gotten so out of hand. She needed some type of security, some kind of reassurance to sleep quickly and soundly and even to this day, her bed is strewn with numerous special stuffed animals, her special pillow and Cuddles, and she has even concocted a little "nest" for herself to sleep in amongst throngs of pillows and teddy bears.

I don't lay with her now unless she asks me to, which can be about once a week. Sometimes I sit on her bed for a few minutes, sometimes I'll crawl under the covers with her since I'll only be able to do this for a short time yet before one of us falls out of the narrow twin bed.

However, with our younger daughter, I was determined to NOT repeat this mistake and thankfully, she was a very independent, self-soothing baby once we passed the "let her cry it out" phase. I avoided laying with her like the plague, but my husband on the other hand, who had no idea what I had been through with Bella, decided to start laying with her. The only good part is that he fell asleep instantly (whereas I would sit and mull over mental to-do lists, things I could be doing now, making myself more anxious than sleepy).  I was secretly happy it wasn't me this time.

But eventually, he tried to cut off ties too. He liked his free television time to veg on the couch and watch the news. He soon started denying her requests and then Ari tried to sideline me into the task. I obliged more than once, but then nipped that too in the proverbial bud. I came up with a hardline rule, since she now was old enough to lay by herself: I would only sit on the edge of her bed for ONE minute and then I would leave.

That has been my M.O. for quite some time now but the other night, Ari convinced me to lay down next to her "just for two minutes." What mother can deny that for her child? So I did, but vowed I would get up in a few minutes and made that clear. She agreed. As soon as I lay down, her little arm swung around and circled my neck comfortingly. Then she began to talk.

[I discovered that as they grew, the more they wanted to tell me as I was tucking them into bed. This was their time to confess or ruminate over things that only a clear mind, free of noise, gadgetry and television clutter, would allow. And oh, the things I heard. ]

I listened intently to her concerns, her observations, her fears, to things said to her by friends that have already left obvious impressions on her. As she was talking, I couldn't help but think to myself, What else have I missed about their thoughts and lives by not laying with them? 
If this is the time they feel most comfortable to talk to me, why haven't I realized this and taken advantage of it more? 
What if these are the only moments they would open up and I would get quality time with them?

Apparently, the fear of laying with them until they go to college had scared me into possibly depriving myself of a piece of them. These little pieces that make up the parts of who they are, how they feel, how they will think and live their lives, how they become affected and how they process life's curveballs and curiosities - these were the moments, and I was letting them go right past me, to be dreamt away and never return.

So now I lay with them - even if it's a few more minutes than I "allow" myself - and take in every little part of their beings - their hugs, their kisses, their caresses, their whispers, their observations, their revelations, their laughs, their minds and their hearts. Then I can drift off to sleep knowing that I was there to listen, to help, to make a joke, to take in these small, yet precious moments of life with them.

Sleepless in Chicago

by Patti and Cathy

We are years out of babyhood with our kids now, and this means alot more sleep.

Or does it?

See, the thing is: we are also years into our lives, and with these years comes plenty of changes. Some of them, such as a sharper, more confident sense of "who gives a crap?", are welcome changes. Some of them? Not.

One of those unwelcome changes includes the cray-cray that has become of our respective hormonal makeups. I mean, yes - we are older, but we can still recall with crippling clarity the days of awkward coming-of-age that brought pimples and cramps and mood swings that normally belong to serial killers.

Awkward

Thankfully, we made our way out of that hellstorm, but then slid right into postpartum madness and years of sleeplessness as new mothers. And now? NOW? We're ba-ack. Except this time? We have managed to combine puberty with the glory days of postpartum cuckoo when we are neither 13 years old nor nursing a newborn. And as we muddle through this madness, we drag into the sludge of insanity our husbands....

Patti
I'm so tired. I get up at ridiculous-o'clock five days a week for work, and I tend to be a night owl who gets her second wind at 11 pm, so that alone should make me tired. But no - I'm tired because no matter what time I hit the hay, I simply cannot sleep. No matter how exhausted I am from the exhausting day I may have had, my eyes are open, staring up at the ceiling, my thoughts lighting my brain on fire, my body....sweating?
Wait a minute. Unless I'm running my fourth mile in a row without stopping, I don't sweat. But lately? To borrow from Da Bruce, at night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet, and a freight running through the middle of my head...

I'm a-comin'!

The other night I woke up at 3 a.m., once again soaking wet, that damned freight train doing its thing to jar me even further awake, and surprise! There was M beside me, just as he has been for over two decades, but he, too, apparently had a freight train running through the middle of his head, because I could hear his eyes blinking with each thought that ate away at his brain as he stared up, comatose, at the ceiling.
"Are you okay?" I asked him as I attempted to undo the sheets that were twisted around my body.
"Are YOU? You woke me up because you won't stop moving."
"I know. I can't get comfortable. And I'm so HOT." I flapped my nightgown against my damp skin.
As if to further cement my lunacy, he snuggled deeper into the covers.
"You're not HOT?"
"It's freezing."
"I"m soaking wet; how are you not hot?" I threw the twisted sheets off my body.
"What's going on with you? The sheets are wet!"
"I'M HOT!"

And that has been our romantic middle-of-the-night banter for the past several months. I'm sure M, who has always been my constant companion in the hatred of over-the-top air conditioning, feels a tad betrayed. After all, he has recently lost his temperature buddy. A strong marriage is based on mutual respect, love, and a shared loathing of air conditioning. I get it, I do. And I ain't happy about it.

In fact, I feel the slide into Old Ladyville more than ever, and M,with his aching bones, his 2 a.m. trips to the bathroom, and his weary thoughts, seems to be making that journey with me.

15 years ago, M and I made vows to each other: For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part, we promised to love and honor one another. They forgot something: For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, in sleeplesness and in slumber, 'til death do us part.

At this rate, we may be partin' sooner than we think.

Cathy
Unlike Patti's situation with M, my husband seems to be the only one snoring to the heavens here. In fact, he is so completely overcome with slumber stupor, that when I purposely wake him (yes, purposely because he is either snoring so loud that I have to flip him on his side or annoying the crap out of me because he's sleeping so soundly and deeply, whereas I am spinning like a top in place, causing the sheets to mummify me in my own insomniac-induced psychosis) he can't even muster up the strength to form one. word. It's as if sleep has drugged him. And I need to get me some of that drug.

If you've already read up on my hormone stitch, you'll know that I have been battling the effects of their absence for quite some time now. I've gone through every possible pre-menopausal symptom out there, including what Suzanne Somers, the self-proclaimed hormone queen, listed in one of her books as the "Seven Dwarfs of Menopause": Itchy, Bitchy, Sweaty, Sleepy, Bloated, Forgetful and All-Dried-Up. Sorry, guys. The truth hurts.

Yes, "All-Dried-Up" will make you Psycho.

The other day I woke up and felt itchy sparks all over my body for no apparent reason. I hadn't felt this in quite some time. Despite the suggestions by Patti (a.k.a Dr. Google) that "itchiness is a sign of liver problems...have you looked into that?" I knew in my hormonally deprived heart that it was NOT a liver problem. This has been going on for two days now and I am so irritated, walking around slapping my itchy skin to make it stop - not a pretty picture. I am hoping it subsides with this month's flow cycle, otherwise my God help my family.

As luck would have it, on the other side of my friend Patti/Dr. Google, stands my Husband/Mother, Joe. Every morning, out of courtesy, he asks how I've slept that night, even though he can tell just by looking at my face. Are the black wells under my eyes dead giveaways? So after I casually mention that I didn't sleep so well -- because of your snoring, because you were sound asleep and therefore mocking my insomnia and being insensitive to my inability to sleep by sleeping  -- he THEN, goes on to offer me any of the following reasons why:

"It's 'cause you're up Facebooking until all hours," and makes a hungry, desperate looking face while pretending to swipe through an imaginary iPhone.
"It's 'cause you are staying up waaaaaay too late. You gotta go to bed earlier."
"It's 'cause you're reading before bed. That stimulates your mind too much."
"It's 'cause you're up watching television before bed. That stimulates your mind too much."

Little does he know that while I'm laying there, desperately beckoning the slumber gods to come and whisk me away, my body is buzzing with energy and electricity that I can almost hear and I can't shut my mind off - even when I am supposedly asleep. I hear every. little. sound. I think about every. little. thing I have to do. And one of those things on my to-do list? Buy some Nyquil Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

Fifty Shades of Grey, Sleepless Nights

by Cathy

Since I am on a roll about the lack of sleep I am getting due to my neighbors and city living, I thought it appropriate to round out my Insomniac Trilogy by talking about what prevents me from getting any sleep in my own bedroom. Yes. I'm going there.

Sleepless nights, partly due to the antics of Mr. Christian Grey

I knowingly prolong my sleep window of opportunity by getting caught up in THE trilogy of the moment: Fifty Shades of Grey.  I say to myself that I'll only read "a few pages just so that I can calm myself down" and get me in the mood for sleep, but if you've read any Shade of the Grey trilogy, it elicits the exact opposite effect. Nonetheless, as the clock trudges relentlessly towards midnight, I force myself to earmark the salacious page I'm on and begin coaxing the slumber out from deep within my exhausted bones. I settle in next to my snoring-to-high-heaven husband for what I hope and pray will be a restful night's sleep.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blinkety blink. I can almost hear my eyes blinking. I wish I could be like my husband, who conks out as soon as his head hits the pillow. But, no. I have to play and re-play the day in my head, analyze, re-analyze, think, re-think, plan, re-plan, mentally write and re-write tomorrow's to-do's, worry, freak-out and toss and turn and get up to make sure I: didn't forget any laundry in the washing machine; make sure I turned on the dryer; remembered to thaw meat for tomorrow's dinner; check on the girls to make sure they aren't too hot or too cold; adjust the windows, make sure the doors are locked and anything else you can think of. Oh yeah...by now...I have to pee.

I am convinced that at the point my sleep window closed, the hormone door was swung wide open. Thus, a mix of: stayed up way too late + Far Too Many Shades of Grey + hormones + Joe's snoring + the incessant thoughts springing up in my head = me falling asleep somewhere in the vicinity of 2 a.m.....which....is right around the time Ari wakes up.


Pitter patter pitter patter. Just as I am dozing off, I hear her little feet coming towards our bedroom down the hallway and my stomach sinks. As my body is jarred fully awake and once again has veered off the course of sleep, my nerves are now shooting electric currents through my body and my eyes start to sting. Immediately I know I have to decide between three options:1) scoop her up and take her back to lay with her until she falls asleep again 2) let her sleep there while I try to sleep there or 3) just leave her there and I go sleep in her bed.

Since option #1 is too much work and option #2 has resulted in little fists and feet landing on my face and poking me in places that jerk me angrily awake and have me looking like a baggy-eyed, bruised up version of myself, I instinctively go for option #3.

As I shuffle into Ari's fluffy pink bed, I make yet another mental note about picking up some Nyquil and Tylenol P.M. on my next store visit. Oh...and some toilet paper. And some...

Stuck in the Middle with...Them

by Cathy

I live in a six-unit condo building. Each side of the building has three units - the top and the bottom of which are duplexes, the middle ones are simplex units. We're in one of those. We have the most number of people in the entire building (4), yet we are the ones living on a single floor while one- and two-people families are living in the spacious two-floor units.

So until we make the move to a single-family home, we are sandwiched - and not in a good way. As irony would have it, the unit below us has only one woman living there. She's an attorney who works from home, and aside from the occasional late-night phone conversation or clarinet practice for her Klezmer band (which she does in her basement), I can barely even tell she lives there. Now why couldn't SHE live upstairs from us? Instead?

Instead, a loud Italian family and their 90-lb. German Shepherd live above us. Granted, here I am, the pot calling the kettle black. We are a Greek/Latino family and we are loud as heck. But at least my upstairs and downstairs neighbors have the option of fleeing one floor above or below us when the going gets loud. We have nowhere to go and as such, are subjected to every fight, toddler tantrum, dog-barking episode that occurs. And when does most of this occur, you may ask? But of course, waaaaaay before we wake up in the morning. It's bad enough I have outside noise to deal with when asleep but noise emanating from within your "house" that's not your doing - that's a whole other component to city living.

We never had much luck when it came to upstairs neighbors since we moved into this multi-unit building 15 years ago. The first couple was the building developer and his wife. How bad could that be, right? No kids. No pets. Well, they were both over six-feet tall and heavy-footed as hell. The scenario that stands out the most with them, happened one night when the guy walked back from a local bar, drunk as a skunk in a funk. It must have been around 2 a.m. and Joe and I were fast asleep when I heard a key searching our back door for a keyhole. Then the knob was turning incessantly and the screen door slid along the tracks in one fell swoop. My eyes flew open and I froze, with the exception of moving my elbow hard enough to nudge Joe in the ribs. "Someone's at the back door!" I whispered and shrieked simultaneously.

In seconds, he was on his feet and stepping cautiously down the hallway, wide awake now. After a few tense minutes, he returned.
"I didn't see anyone," he said shuffling back under the covers. "What did you hear?"

As if on cue, we heard the supposed intruder stumbling into the room above us. He obviously found the back door keyhole that fit his key. After a series of boom-boom-booms heard criss-crossing the floor above us, we felt the ceiling, walls and floors shudder and all the furniture and pictures on our wall shook with electricity as we heard the loudest THUD! ever. We simultaneously shot up in bed, our hearts racing and our breaths still, waiting for more. But there was only silence. Apparently, he shuffled his drunk weight around the room in an attempt to remove his pants and naturally, got tangled in them to the point where he lost his balance and tipped over like a tree falling in the forest. There he lay flat on his face and slept for the rest of the night while we hardly clocked a wink.

The people who moved in after them were a single mom and her teenage son, another lead-footed, shuffler who listened to loud rock music at all times and had friends over almost always.

And now, we have the loud Euro family. We've had them as upstairs neighbors for nine years now so you would think we'd be used to this but we never do because every day brings with it a unique, loud-ass scenario that could be as simple as their four-year old using the bathroom and screaming out to her mother. "Mommy! I miss you! Mommy! Can you wipe me?!?" As luck would have it yet again, they are also a Shrek-sized family. Both parents are over six-feet tall (noticing a pattern here?) and their "toddler" wears a shoe size that looks dangerously close to the size I wear, as Bella delicately pointed out to me today. "That's just wrong," we said, almost in unison.

That big-footed toddler doesn't run as delicately as a girl her age should. She flops her feet in a dead-weight fashion with every leap forward. More than once, my heat has kicked in simply by having one of the parents stomp-walk above my thermostat. Meanwhile the dog jumps off the couch and my light fixtures shake, rattle and roll. We all know that Greeks and Italians talk so loud it sounds like they're always fighting, but when in fact they are fighting? Fuggedaboudit.

Now this family is finally moving into the single-family home they need to be in but the question looms large: Which big-footed, loud-mouthed, zoo-toting family will move in?

Windows & Eyes Wide Shut

by Cathy

I love two things: sleep and nice weather.

I love them even more when I can get them at the same time. However, Chicago weather rarely allows you the opportunity to crack open the windows of your house because the temperature here goes from 30 degrees to 90 degrees overnight - which means you can have the heat on one day and the air conditioning on, the next; no natural air flow.

When all the weather Gods decide to smile down upon Chicago and all the planets align and the earth is at the most precise point on its axis to where I get to throw open my windows and let some natural air flow into my stale, incubated home, I revel in the act. Once the crack is heard and the humidity-swollen windows unseal themselves from their frames, I lift them high above my head like an Olympic weightlifting champ and take in the summer breeze that blows through my hair as I shut my eyes and smile widely - much like those women do in those commercials for anything from chocolate to shampoo.

Having the windows open is a perfect compromise for me and Joe because he H-A-T-E-S the air conditioner much like a vampire hates holy water. At night, we settle in for a comfortable night's sleep, feeling the cool breeze flow in as we snuggle under the summer blankets and sleep like a babies until...

...someone's godforsaken, f*&^$ing car alarm undoubtedly will go off at some insane time of the morning - every morning I get to sleep in. WEEE-OOOOOOO-WEEEEE-OOOOOOOO-WEEEEEE-OOOOOOO-WEEEEE-OOOOOOOO and on and on until I start dreaming, half-awake, that I am releasing the safety on my rifle as I prop myself out of that open window and aim at the alarmed car - alarmed by some phantom force that comes out only to nudge cars into shriek mode and annoy me when I have my windows open and trying to sleep in.

...one of my neighbors decides to mow the lawn (again, at an insane time of morning - don't these people ever sleep IN?) with the loudest electric lawn mower on the face of the earth, then uses a leaf blower to blow debris off his property and onto mine (I never understood the purpose for those damned things) and then uses an edge trimmer to get his lawn to look more manicured than my nails will ever be. And now...I'm up.

...one of the 1,397 dogs within a one block radius of my building will inevitably see that phantom force haunting all the car alarms in the area or maybe just notice a bee buzzing by, but they will bark their hearts and lungs out until they are satisfied with how well they've done their dog duty for the day. This is usually followed by the owner's urgent, reprimanding requests to stop. So it will go like this: bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, howl, bark, bark, bark-bark, bark, howl, bark, bark-bark-bark, bark..."Timber! Stop!" Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark-bark, "TIMBER!" And guess what? Now, I'm up and annoyed as hell.

...you know how in Cinderella when the sweet, little chirping birds gracefully and beautifully sing-song the sleeping maiden awake in the morning and braid her hair and make her bed and give her a bath and help get her dressed? If a bird is going to do all that for me, then that's the only time it's okay for it to sit on my windowsill and shriek out it's little chirping bird call. Otherwise, it should go sit on the windowsill of the dog owners/landscape artists who are already awake and bringing down the neighborhood.

...and finally, I know they're just doing their jobs but when the garbage and recycling trucks come through at 7am and of course, they need to reverse, because who can always drive straight ahead down an alley, right? When they reverse through the crossroads of my back alleys, the automatic safety feature kicks in to alert the entire neighborhood that the truck is reversing with a series of BEEEEEP-BEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEPS. Then there is a pause as he straightens out the truck, only to reverse again: BEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP. "WHOA!!!" screams the spotter to the driver, who can't see what he is inches away from hitting. We get this TWO mornings a week - once with regular garbage pick up and once with recycling. I know, I know, I should be thankful that we HAVE garbage pick-up and that I am not living in squalor being swallowed up by my own wasteful consumption. But can't they do it at lunchtime?

Of course let's not forget the fire trucks, ambulances and kids that wake up at the ass-crack of dawn who are out playing and screaming and fighting while their bleary-eyed parents are face-planted in a mug of coffee the size of a flower planter and too tired to shush them down.


I am well aware that I sound like a cantankerous old fart and you would think I'd be used to all this by now given that I was born and raised in Chi-town. However, when I was younger, I could sleep through a world war. Now that I've had kids my body has programmed me to hear a pin drop in the middle of the night.

Maybe it's my age. Maybe I'm getting to old for city living. Maybe I ought to move to the suburbs. Or maybe...I should just keep my windows sealed shut FOREVER so I can get some shut-eye.

The Early Bird Catches the Worm

by Patti

For the past two weeks, I have been waking at 5:45 am.

If you know me at all, you know that a 5:45 wake-up time is considered against the law in my own personal Book of Laws, and that the ONLY reason to wake up at 5:45 am is a) to nurse a baby; b) to run from the house screaming because it’s on fire; c) to go the emergency room because you or somebody you love might be dying; d) to catch a flight to somewhere way better than where you currently are.

That’s it. No other reason.  And believe me, in my opinion, some of those reasons are questionable. That’s how anti-getting-up-before-8 AM I am.

So, why am I violating my own personal laws? Because I have to.  I am getting up early for work because my hours have changed.

As the first day of my early rise approached, I actually felt kind of panicky: Would I be able to do it? Would I fall back to sleep? Would I feel sick with exhaustion all day? Would I resent the others in my house who got to sleep another 2 hours while I silently and tiredly blinked my way into the day?  Would I have to set 9 alarm clocks to ensure that I actually wake up?

But the first day happened and surprisingly it wasn’t so bad. Not at all, even. It was kind of nice to hit the road before so many others.  I felt like I was let in on a little secret about seizing the day: SO MUCH CAN HAPPEN WHEN YOU GET OUT OF BED. Who knew? I felt like the other  drivers on the road and I were part of a brotherhood, of sorts; we all kind of nodded at one another at red lights and stop signs, “You, too?” they seemed to ask. “Yes,” I responded with my (bleary) eyes.  We all knew that it had still been dark outside when we got out of bed, and that, despite the darkness, it was still not a bad idea to get out of that bed anyway, because it gave the day ample opportunity to let amazing things happen.

Those of you who have always torn out of bed at 5 AM are probably reading this and thinking me nuts. Well, let me say this: I am nuts, so you’re right there.  You may also be thinking, “DUH.” Because, yeah, DUH, when you get up earlier and do earlier, results happen earlier. It’s common math. But you have to truly know me to know that for me to be okay with this nonsense is, indeed, a miracle.

I’ll admit, I’m tired. My body is still fighting this lifestyle. After all, I grew up in the totally opposite direction, I married a man who also grew up in the totally opposite direction, and I have continued to live my life in the totally opposite direction. It feels slightly inauthentic for me to be breathing in the dawn air when I have, my entire life, breathed in the midnight moon instead. Then again, when it’s 9 AM and you have already ticked 15 things of your “to-do” list, it’s a whole new kind of exhilaration – one that makes waking up before the sun kind of worth it.

We’ll see; I’m still very new at this whole thing, and I may very well just be in the honeymoon stage with the Crack-of-Dawn.  Maybe soon the Crack-of-Dawn will start getting on my nerves – that Crack of Dawn with its not-quite bright sky and its silent birds and its frosty grass.

Or, maybe not.

Either way, life is pretty dynamic, isn’t it?

Mommyonette

by Patti

From the moment I come home from work, S is glued to my hip all the way up until bedtime. There is the after-schook snack chat, homework, dinner, couch cuddles, next-day preparation chores.... M works weeknights, and, since S is an "only", she has no siblings to keep her busy. This means it's all Me-n-the-Kid all the time, and by the time 9 pm rolls around I am des. per. ate. for her to Go! To! Sleep! Already! By this point I have been pleasing people pretty much all day long, and I am ready to plop on the couch, cover myself up with my zebra blanket, stick a warm laptop on my lap, and mindlessly browse the 'net while my little Anderson Cooper talks wittily to me from the flickering TV.  Yes, I love multi-tasking my loafing, and WHY NOT; I multi-task everything else,

Although I eagerly look forward to bedtime, I also kind of have a love-hate relationship with it because bedtime means that we have to do the "routine".  S is a creature of habit. She needs these routines to feel safe and satisfied, and given her history of bedtime blues, I indulge her need for these little routines because I'd rather spend 10 minutes getting her to sleep then 10 hours NOT sleeping. However, at the end of the day, after a veritable cornucopia of routines, I just feel so DONE with routines that I admit I grow impatient with having to do yet another one. But we do it anyway. It starts with my telling her no less than 9 times to brush her teeth and get her pajamas on. Once she is finally in bed, I check her alarm clock and set her radio to soft music on a 20 minute sleep timer, then we do the Advent calendar, we read a story, I re-fill her water glass and hand it to her so she can take a sip, and then, once the lights are out, I sit with her for 2 minutes. That's it: just 2 minutes. And as long as I do all of these things in the right order, I can safely leave the room.

And the moment I settle myself onto the couch, my blanket perfectly tucked around my body, the laptop fired up, Anderson on, it happens.
"Mommy!" S, calling me from bed.
Me, from couch: "What?"
S, from bed: "Can I pee?"

I have told S thousands of times that she doesn't need to ask me permission to pee; that she is welcome to GET UP AND GO TO THE BATHROOM. But she asks me every. single. time. I have figured out that it is not really her asking my permission, or even having to pee, really; it is more her way of maintaining that connection with me so she doesn't have to go to sleep. So, even though I know she doesn't have to pee at all, I  tell her to go pee and get back in bed. I hear her shuffle to the bathroom, flush the toilet for effect, and shuffle back to bed, all as sloooooooooooowly as possible.

"Mommy!" S, back in bed, after her faux pee.
Me, from couch: "WHAT?"
"Uh... Good night!"
"Good night."
Silence. Then...
"Mommy!" There she goes again.
At this point I am VERY annoyed and feeling kind of stabby. "WHHAAAAT?"
S, tiny-voiced: "I love you."
Me, knowing I am being totally manipulated but falling for it anyway. "Love you, too, bean."
Then she goes quiet, and I giddily snuggle down into my blanket for some couch time.
"Mommy?" S, from bed AGAIN.
Me: "Oh, honey, WHAT?????"
S: "The radio turned off. I can't sleep without it."
Me: "GO TO SLEEP!"
S: "But I can't sleep without it!"

I huffily get out of my cocoon and stomp my way to her bedroom. Feeling like a marionette being manipulated by a master puppeteer, I angrily reset her radio and start stomping out.
"Mommy?"
I see her, laying there, her eyes blinking in the glow of the nightlight.
"What?"
"Thank you."

That is when I go to her bed, my marionette strings tangled, and I stroke her face; the face that will one day turn away from me, the face that will one day hold secrets, the face that will no longer call for me in the night. And I kiss that face.

And then I go back to the couch and sit in the quiet that has finally come.

Musical Beds

by Cathy and Patti

There was once a time when our things were ours. When our bedroom was ours. When our bed was ours.  This is not the case any longer now that our lovable kids have put quite the dent in the way we live - and the way we sleep.

Since they were born, most of us kept our babies in our bedrooms - so they can be easily breastfed, so they can be easily heard, so that we can ensure they are breathing. Eventually, we transition them off to their own rooms, but alas, those rooms are not as appealing as the parents' room. You would think our walls were made of chocolate! Our duvet covers were made of warm, gooey caramel! The pillows were fluffy, giant marshmallows! And there are glittery fairies that light up only our rooms at night and sprinkle rainbow-colored sugar over us while we sleep! Surely, this can be the only reason that our kids continue to want to lay with us in our beds or sneak in between us and our spouses in the middle of the night.

However, it's what ensues as a result of this bed-hopping that wreaks the most havoc on the way we look and feel after a night of having slept on pretty much every sleepable surface of our house - except, probably, our own bed.

Cathy:
Our king size bed (a.k.a. the Big Bed to my kids) measures about six and-a-half feet wide. Do you know where I slept the other night? In that half-foot of space. Let me explain...

Over Thanksgiving break, of course, the girls' sleep schedule got off whack. It was 10:30 at night and they were doing the Greek bellydance jig to the tune of "I like 'em big! I like 'em chunky!" from Madagascar 2. So I purposely woke them up 'early' on Sunday morning, so they could fall face-first tired into their beds that night and wake up bright and early for school on Monday. Instead, Sunday night, Ari was roaming around the hallway with her little pillow, begging me to lay with her at 10pm. After she fell asleep, Bella eventually wandered into my bedroom at 11:30 practically in tears because she was just so overtired and couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep. So I let her sleep in the Big Bed with me since Joe was snoring up to high heaven on the living room couch anyway.

All was fine until about 4:30 in the morning, when I heard, "Mama! Mama!" Bella and I were jarred from our sleep to find Ari standing on the bed over Bella's head. I thought I was having one of those delusional mirages like the parched desert trekkers have with water. Was this for real? I reached over Bella with one eye open and sure enough, Ari was standing there. She had apparently startled awake and realized that I was no longer laying with her so she came to seek me out. She was about to leap half asleep over her sister to come and settle between us. The only problem was that Bella was so far over on my side that I had to scooch over practically to the edge of the massive bed. I asked Bella to move over the other way, where she had about four feet of open space. She just shifted her knees before she exhaustingly fell back asleep.

So for the next few hours before the alarm went off at 7am, I was drifting in and out of sleep, tossing like a salad in a spinner, being kneed in the tailbone, face, boobs and the small part of my back that is so ticklish, I found myself jerking almost headfirst into my nightstand with every little fist and foot nudge.

Naturally, Joe at this point had settled into one of the girls' beds after almost unknowingly laying on Bella as he groggily came to bed. I thought over and over again about getting up and going to lay in the other twin bed, surrendering the spacious Big Bed to the two tiniest people in the house, while the biggest people slept in the tiniest beds. Makes sense, right? But I knew from past experience that I either wouldn't be able to fall back asleep in the other room or like clockwork, Ari would awaken from her sleep stupor - because she can just smell these things, even in her sleep - and want to follow me back to her bed.

Instead, I lay there half asleep, startling awake every time Ari would kick off her covers or toss uncomfortably. It was clear no one - not even she - was getting any good sleep that night.

Patti:
As I have mentioned before, S didn't sleep through the night until she was 18 months old, and even then, she had periods of torturous regression where she simply would. not. sleep. unless one of us was laying with her.  She didn't care where we were laying with her, as long as we were. This meant that, in order to ensure that S would not be exhausted the next day, one or both us fools (a.k.a. parents) would end up sleeplessly uncomfortable, uncomfortably sleepless -- and, surprise! Exhausted!

S is now a solid 10 years old, and guess what? She still has those nights. Except for she is now, like, 4 times bigger than she used to be, and slotting her in between M and me isn't as easy as it used to be. Yes, we have a king bed, but we could have 9 king beds lined up side-by-side, and it still wouldn't be big enough. Because the kid will inevitably find her way to the nearest back -- usually mine -- and stick herself smack-dab against it. All. Night.

Because of this, and M's "delicate" sleep cycles,  he has declared our bed a kid-free zone. Still, there are nights where he will cave and allow S to indulge in what she likes to call 'Family Cuddle". She always promises it will be for "just 10 minutes" - even though she brings the entire contents of her bed to ours and is clearly moving in  - and inevitably we will all fall asleep during this "just 10 minutes". And then, at 2 am, I will wake up in a tunnel of kid and husband, dying of heat stroke, an ass or two in my face, and an inch of sleep space.

The other night S didn't even bother with the "Family Cuddle" ruse; she flat-out asked if she could sleep with us. M was going to stay up later to watch a movie, so he said she could fall asleep with me, and that he would carry her to her bed later. I woke up at 2 am to find S spiraled around me, and M shoved far into the corner of the bed. Annoyed that he had flaked out on his "transfer the kid" promise, I huffily got out of bed and went to S's room to prepare her bed so that I could carry her into it without waking her up. S has a low bunk bed, and she has a cozy little "fort" bed on the bottom with a curtain. When I walked in, I was confused to find a makeshift bed on the floor? I couldn't understand why, when there are 2 whole beds to sleep on in S's room, there was one on the floor? Too tired to solve mysteries, I went back to my room and lugged 58 lbs of kid back to her room, then went back to my bed. Of course, S woke up and got freaked out and started calling my name. I went back to her room, my mind knowing I had to get up in what felt like 5 minutes for work, and shushed her, but she must have had a bad dream because she was afraid. So I climbed onto her top bunk, telling myself I would only lay there for 5 minutes as she fell back asleep, and promptly fell asleep.

I woke up a billion times that night, kicking the top of the floor lamp, scratching my hand on the white eraser board S had shoved under her pillow, hearing stuffed animals hurtle through space from the bed to the floor... In short: I slept like shit. Meanwhile, M had an entire king bed to himself.

The next day, I found out that M had come to bed and attempted to take S to her own bed, but she woke up and he didn't feel like dealing with the whole "transfer" drama, so he decided to sleep in her room. He tried the top bunk, but it felt "dangerous", so then he squeezed himself into the "fort" bed underneath, and it felt "too short". So Mr. Goldilocks made a bed on the FLOOR next to two perfectly good beds, but guess what? THE FLOOR WAS TOO HARD. Ya think? So he finally came back to our bed, and rather than just carry the kid to her bed, just dealt with being shoved into a corner, probably knowing I would wake up and take care of it all.

And I did. As usual.
....

The 9pm Nap

by Cathy

Nine o'clock is usually when I have my girls in bed these days - well, Ari at least. Bella still thinks it's too early for bed. Naturally, I have to lay with Ari on her bed (or at least sit there with her) until she falls asleep. (For the record, we are slowly working on breaking this habit with her. And by 'we' I mean ME. I am the one who usually ends up having to lay with her to fall asleep.) The only problem is that I end up on the brink of sleep myself.

I desperately try to refrain from falling asleep by sitting up on her bed. But occasionally, she asks me to lay next to her and squeeze-hug her. For this, I happily oblige; there's nothing like taking in the sweet smell of your child's neck as they fall asleep. Before I know it, however, I have drifted off right along with them. Despite my best efforts to stay awake! so I can accomplish the list of things that are already accumulating in my head, sleep sometimes takes over my body and brain.

Some time later, I startle awake and it takes me a good minute to figure out where I am. Once that's established, I purposely try to walk to my bedroom with my eyes closed, so that I can keep the momentum of sleep going. Don't wake up...don't wake up...

I realize I have to get my pajamas on. There are people who can sleep in their clothes. I'm not one of them. Don't wake up... Then I realize I have to pee. Don't wake up... Then I realize I didn't brush my teeth. Don't wake up... Then I realize I have to check to make sure doors and windows are locked. Don't wake up... Then I realize I forgot to defrost the chicken for tomorrow's dinner. Digging around in the freezer, I'm starting to wake up... Then I realize I forgot to put the washed clothes in the dryer. I'm slowly reaching full on awake mode... Then I realize I haven't removed my makeup. By the time I splash on water to wash off the apricot foaming gel, I'M UP.

By now it's well past 11pm and I am fully awake.

I could make tomorrow's lunches for the kids! I could go through my stack of work papers/coupons/catalogs/bills/kids drawings/recipes! I could clean out my purse! I could catch up on watching DVR'd shows I don't get a chance to watch during non-vampire hours! I could catch up with Facebook! Twitter! LinkedIn! The world is my oyster!

And tomorrow morning, the alarm clock is my worst enemy.

Bedtime Revelations

by Cathy

The other night, while going through the bedtime ritual of laying with Ari for a few minutes before she fell asleep, she suddenly popped up from her cozy tucked in covers and said rather too excitedly, "I can count to 10 in French! Une, deux, trois..." On she went to ten, popping a little finger up each time to coincide with her thought process.

'Wow, that's great," I whispered. "Now lay down and go to sleep."
A few minutes of some shuffling passed before she sat up again.
"Mama?"
"Yes, honey?"
"How does the Earth become morning and nighttime?"
Pause.
"I'm serious," she continued. "I'm five years old and I don't know this. I have to know."
Sigh...I didn't know whether to laugh or hug her. I never want to stifle her thirst for knowledge so I gave a quick explanation using my hands about the Earth, the sun, the rotations, our location, etc. Even in the dark, I could see her face contort into slight confusion. She then told me that her teacher explained that the sun rotates faster than the Earth and couldn't believe it when I told her that the Earth was turning slowly as we spoke, right at this very minute.

I love the inquisitive and talkative side of my children...but at bedtime? Seriously?

Oftentimes, this is when they feel they can tell me about what they have learned, what they remembered, what they forgot to do, what happened in school that day or last week or even what will happen tomorrow. As you can infer from the above, from Ari (my five-year old), I get the most random combination of statements and questions. From Bella (my 10-year old), I get mostly "confessions."

Bella will usually blurt out something that she seemingly wants to get off her chest. As I'm leaning in to tuck her in, mid-hug, she will say something like, "I have a math test tomorrow" or "Mrs. so-and-so at school told me that I can't wear those khaki pants anymore because they're not part of uniform code" or some other issue that she has to confess before the clock strikes 12 and she turns into a pumpkin. Sometimes, I get frustrated if she raises a bigger or more complicated issue that obviously can't be handled in the dark as she's tucked in for bed at an already late hour; I attempt to acknowledge her concern but kindly tell her that we have to talk more about this at a more opportune time. She tells me that she likes to bring up things for us to talk about at bedtime because this is the only time it's truly quiet and we get to be alone - just the two of us.

Perhaps that is the real reason for her; perhaps the darkness of the room shields their face from embarrassment; perhaps the stillness of the room and the quiet of their minds allow certain thoughts to fertilize; or perhaps the preparation for school the next day stimulates thoughts idling in their heads. No matter the reason, I concluded that I don't really care.

What I do care about is that they always continue to share their minds, thoughts, concerns and questions with me, at bedtime, or any time.

Will Bribe for Sleep

by Patti

S didn't sleep through the night until she was 18 months old. Eighteen. EIGHT. TEEN. Night after delirious night I would rise, drunk with lack of sleep, and stumble through the dark to her. Yes, we tried the whole "cry it out" thing; we tried the "slowly back out the room one foot at at time" method; we tried every trick in the book, and nothing worked. NOTHING.

So we dealt with it. Well, I dealt with it. M was the best dad of a newborn ever, but after month, oh TWELVE, he was all, "WHEN IS THIS KID GONNA SLEEP?"

But something clicked at month 18, and suddenly, she was a total champion sleeper, sleeping in until well past 10 am in the mornings. It was if she was trying to make up for the billion lost hours of sleep. And it was good.

Then, suddenly, around 4 years old, she snapped. Her brain was done with sleep. Sleep? What's this? A waste of time, I tell you! And she zoomed back through time and ended up right back where we started: Not. Sleeping.

She would start out okay. I mean, sure, I would have to sit on her bed, then move to the doorway, then sit in the hallway reading a book until she felt safe enough to give in to sleep. And just when I was about to explode with bitterness and resentment, she would fall asleep. And then I would creep back into her room and stare at her in all her sleepy splendor, and suddenly she looked like an angel, all golden and rosy, her eyelashes brushing her cheeks, her skin glittery with angel dust. And all of that resentment would fall away and she was perfect and beautiful and I just loved her so.

But then, there we would be, M and I, exhausted from a full day of life, happily snoozing in our own bed when, "MOOOOOOOOOMMMMM! SLEEP WITH MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" S, straight from her slumber, would scream out in the night. Do you know what it's like to be woken up like this? Do you? I would literally pop up, my heart thumping in my throat, my arms flailing dramatically, while M grunted tragically and wrestled with the blankets; crocodiles in his sleep. And I would race to her room, expecting to find what, I don't know, but not anything good, I tell you. And there she'd be, sitting up in her bed, the angel now flown away, demanding my company. And the whole cycle would start again, except this time around, my patience was not even pretending to do its thing.

After much, much too long of this nonsense, I had to get savvy. Clearly, the kid was not going stop demanding 3 A.M. playdates, and I was not going to get a full night's sleep ever again ever, so I decided to do what any desperate parent would do in a time like this: I bribed her.  I took her to the store and let her pick out a toy. The deal was that the toy would live on the highest shelf in my closet  until she could go 10 whole days without screaming out my name in the middle of the night. I even upped the stakes and told her that not only did she have to stop screaming for me in the middle of the night, she also had to release me from the prison of the hallway at bedtime. The new rule was: Tuck in, story, kiss, see ya! She agreed this was a fair deal, and that lovely little toy became the shining beacon - for both of us.

We made a little calendar and lo and behold, it worked! I couldn't believe how easy this was! I had been so conditioned by torture, I simply couldn't believe my good fortune. But bedtime became a breeze; we were all sleeping through the night; we were all whistling the joyful whistle of "I slept so good last night!" in the mornings. So, as promised, at the end of those 10 blissful days, I brought down her toy from the closet. She had chosen a music box that, when opened, presented a colorful, popped-up Mickey Mouse who danced to his own theme. That first night, I read her a story and kissed her, and happily bid good night, and then.... "Mommy, will you sit with me for just one second and listen to my Mickey Mouse song?"
Not entirely worried, yet, I sat down on the edge of the bed. "Just for one time, through okay?"
She nodded and opened the box. Mickey danced joyfully.
"Mommy? Will you sing the song?"
"Honey, I don't know the words."
"Make them up."
"Let's just listen."
"But make them up, pleeeease?"
"Mickey is so fun and cool, he loves it when you sleep! M-I-C-K-E-Y- M-O-U-S-E... Okay honey, good night!"
"The song isn't over yet."
"It's a music box, honey, it will just keep playing and pl...." Oh, shit.
"Sing more."
"Good night!"
"SING MOOOOORE!"

The bribe had backfired. My dismal future lay before me: Not only was I now going to have tuck her in and read her a book, I was also going to have throw in on-the-fly songwriting and singing to the nightly routine. Desperate, I tried blackmail. "If you don't go to sleep RIGHT NOW, I am taking this back to the store and NO MORE MICKEY. Do you hear me?" S looked at me, her chin all quivery, the Mickey dancing more and more slowly as the music started to die. I grabbed the box and put it on her night table, cranking it a few turns so that the music might help her sleep. Then I kissed her and huffed towards the door.
"Mommy?"
"WHAT?!?"
"I love you."
Stab. I turned back to her bed and sat next to her, burying my face into her neck and kissing it. "I love you, too, lovebug."
"Mommy?"
"Hmmm?"
"One more song?"
"Mickey is a giant mouse who loves his family.. M-I-C-K-E-Y- M-O-U-S-E..."
And then, just like that, she turned over and went to sleep.