To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Yesterday Cagey talked about co-sleeping and how she felt about it.  She dedicated her post to me, since I complain loudly to complete strangers about how I never get any sleep.  Or at least to my friends, anyway.  I have, over the past year, asked some of the Internet goddesses their opinions on sleep. One told me that she had worked with her famous toddler, who has slept great since four months despite having some other challenges that she has now overcome.  One told me she solved the problem with a family secret, but I can't tell you what it was, because, well, it was a secret.  One told me all three of her kids have ended up in bed with them at some point, and well, she just didn't stress over it. Some just said, "Hey, I feel for you.  This, too, shall pass."

It started me thinking about sleeping in general.  Last night, for instance, I got a lot of sleep.  The little angel made it through until 4:30, then we got some milk and went down on the couch.  She fell back asleep by five and we slept until seven.  It was blissful.  Her little head (well, it's getting heavier all the time, particularly when she's full-on passed out, but still) fits on my right shoulder, and I can turn on my side and breathe in her toddler-hair smell while I doze.  My arm goes around her waist, and she snuggles in like a kitten.  Sometimes, like last night, Sybil will crawl up on the couch and sit above my arm with her tail draped over my elbow.  She twitches her tail like that, and it sometimes occurs to me that this sensation is like touching the underbelly of a dolphin - something you think you should probably not be privy to, but are so astonished and happy that you are.  The feeling of the underside of a tail wrapping around your wrist is akin to stepping through a wardrobe into snow. 

Before the little angel came along, I thought of sleep as a reward, as a necessity I could not live without.  When I was 21, I graduated college a semester early and started working as an advertising account executive a town over.  My four roommates were still hard-partying college seniors who regularly held after-hours parties in our apartment, sometimes until four in the morning. I typically got up at six for work, and it was the kind of place you had to wear pantyhose at.  It was a hellish experience - I was always tired and hated my job, but most of all, I hated the lack of sleep.

I'm a baby about sleep. I love sleep. I function so poorly without sleep, I would never make it in the armed forces, on Survivor or back in a four-year institution on the student side.  However, now I view sleep as a commodity.  There is no bad sleep.  There is just sleep, or lack of sleep, and ANY kind of sleep, even the drooling, mouth-open, so-embarrassing-on-the-airplane sleep is far, far better than NO SLEEP AT ALL.

And the kind of sleep accompanied by a snoring husband (thank you, Lord, for making those squishy yellow earplugs) or a sweating toddler is especially wonderful.  It means you're not in the house or the world alone.  And that is a lovely thing.

So Cagey, sleep with Arun.