Sleep

If there's one thing I can do well it's sleep. I've inherited this gift from my mom, although there are certainly more legendary sleepers in the family than me. My siblings and I were very wise in choosing our spouses - we all married light sleepers. This especially comes in handy when you have children. I'm sure we have all had the experience of only knowing that we nursed our baby in the night because we wake up in the morning and there it is, only later to find out that our husband heard the baby crying in the other room, picked him up and brought him to us to nurse. And then as the children grow up they continue to wake for a variety of reasons - cough, potty, nightmares, or for no apparent reason at all. Every morning I ask Dave how the night was because honestly I haven't got a clue. But with Dave gone, I do seem to be more aware of nighttime noises. I have to close all the bedroom doors and blast the white noise to drown them out. Usually by the time I wake up enough to realize Brennan's crying, he has already removed his pajamas and thrown his sheet and blankets out of the crib. Then this morning I awoke at 6:45 to the sound of feet running up and down the stairs and doors slamming shut. When I yelled out for someone to tell me what was going on, Spencer and Tyler came in my room and said they woke up at 6:00, ate breakfast, got dressed, brushed teeth and combed hair because they wanted to have plenty of time to play before school. They had been running up and down the stairs looking for shoes. They hadn't decided whether they would play computer games or go outside on the swings; since it was still pitch dark at the time, I recommended the computer.