My Ode to Quality Sleep, Circa 2002

                 There was a time when sleep was normal, or at least normal for someone like me who tends to be a night owl. I could rely on six and a half to seven hours sleep per night.  I think that was circa 2003 or make that 2002, before I was pregnant with Allison. It was the era of Bush and children were just a twinkle in my eye.
              Two children later, with one on the way, sleep means it is a special night. Special in the sense that I hit the hay at a normal time without crashing out on the couch or some other soft place, like my children's bed or besides my husband at eight o'clock (he gets up for work when most people are still sleeping). That would be all fine if that was the end of the night. But  I wake with that sense of what still needs to be done. Usually, there are lunches to be made; other things to do; and a desperate urge to fulfill something resembling me time at the end of the day.  So I get up and then can not fall back asleep. My sleep resembles Lake Erie on a windy day.
       My girls say funny things to me like," Mama did you put makeup on under your eyes to make them look dark,?"

     I know I am not alone. When your with a group of mommies what else dominates the conversation, but sleep. There will be a few years, perhaps in between elementary school and junior high, when sleep is not such an issue. But then it will return to the forefront and sleepless nights will take on a whole new meaning, come adolescence.

     I had all good intentions of watching the "State of the Union" address and the hockey game, but the sandman had his way with me again.  Truly sleep has become perverted from its original meaning.