I'm a slug

I'm having major sleep issues - as in I'm not sleeping at night but can't stay awake for sex, love, or money during the day. It's 11:45pm right now and I'm wide awake. Caffeine you ask? No, I usually abstain.

I personally think it's because just TRYING to sleep has become an exercise in futility. For one thing, I'm 46 and have reached that famous stage of perimenopause that's marked by night sweats. I'll wake up drenched with wrinkly fingers like I've been in the tub. Then I have to swear and change my pjs. Yes swearing is encouraged during night sweats - it chases away the demons of actual menopause.

The other factor is my husband snores like a band saw. He has about 11 different snoring patterns that I've identified and he'll alternate those sequences in random order. Just enough to make me actually consider the advantages of getting a full night's sleep in the big house after I suffocate him with our down comforter. When we first married, all I had to do was lightly touch him with my sweet newlywed hand and he would stop. Now I could drive the minivan into his side of the bed and I doubt he'd even flinch.

The 3rd factor is children. Seems that my husband not only CANNOT SEE clutter around the house, he also CANNOT HEAR the children at night. So if any child is sleep walking, sleep talking, or puking in their toilet which is about 13 feet from our bed, it's Mom to the rescue. You Moms know what I mean - they scream in the night and I'm half way to their room before I've even left REM sleep. It doesn't even interrupt his current snore pattern. And if they have a bad dream, don't you just KNOW who's side of the bed they arrive at. Let me tell you, until you've been awakened from a deep sleep by the sudden appearance of a severely freaked out child in the dead of night, you just haven't lived. For the first few seconds I'm just trying to remember whether I even HAVE kids.

Now don't get me wrong, my hubby is a wonderful man who will gladly do his part to return a wandering child to their bed. But he has to be awake first. This will take so much punching and prodding from me that by the time he's conscious enough to sit up, I've pulled a muscle and have to change my pjs again. I've always said that if we had an intruder he'd be absolutely no help at all. I'd have the criminal tied up with coaxial cable while the kids beat him with kitchen utensils before my husband opened one eye. In a housefire, the firefighters would be dragging him out by the heels and he'd still be snoring.

But the next day I'm a complete slug. As soon as the kids are off the school, if I'm not working that day, I hit the couch and go comatose until 10am. When I come home from work, my bed calls like a siren on the cliffs.

Guess I'll just sleep when I'm dead.