If I Could Change Just One Thing...

As I type this right now, I look to my left, and my husband is snoring softly with his head leaned back in his chair. The wee ones are both asleep in their beds, happily (I assume) napping.

This isn't unusual. My husband can sleep anywhere, at any time. It takes him seconds to fall asleep when he chooses. This isn't to say that he falls asleep when he doesn't want to in a problematic manner, but if he wants to nap, he simply does.

I'm not blessed with that gift. No matter how tired I am, I cannot nap. Even when I was on the brink of exhaustion with newborns, I could never sleep during the day. Once I'm up, I'm up regardless of how much or how little sleep I got.

This is coming into stark relief today. Thursday night, Little Miss had a nightmare. At 4:20am, I was jerked awake by her screams of Moooooommmmmmyyyyy! that echoed pitifully down the hallway. My husband (who needs less sleep than me and can sleep anywhere -- as mentioned above) was out doing the Black Friday scouring for us, so it was up to me to comfort her. She babbled about a monster she had dreamt about and simply clung to me. This is exceedingly unusual for her, and it took a good ten minutes before I could convince her to lay down again.

Then I laid down again. No matter what tricks I tried or how hard I worked, I never did fall asleep again, and my night's sleep ended at 4:20am. The irony that I could have gotten up at 4:20 and done the shopping myself was not lost on me.

Fortunately, that meant that when she called for me at 6am to say that she'd thrown up in her bed, I was already awake and was able to get her to the toilet in time for round 2. And Momma don't do puke, so yes, she then climbed into bed with me in clean clothes while we waited for Daddy to get home.

This wouldn't be so bad, except that the night before, Mister Man had come screaming down the hallway yelling for Mommy. At 2:20am. (Mind you, I've trained the wee ones to call for Daddy in the middle of the night when they need something. They have learned to do so, but when it's something really big, inevitably, it's Mommy they need). I caught him before he reached our room, which at least kept him from waking up Little Miss with his screaming.

Apparently the furnace scared him (we were at my in-laws and he has to sleep in the basement there -- more on that in a day or so). Once I explained to him the various bangs and whooshes the furnace made and the causes behind them -- he now understands how metal expands when heated -- he was able to go back to bed.

At 2:50, I got up to get a drink. At 3:30, I gave up and turned on the light to try to do some reading. At 5:20, I had finished counting backwards from 500 after doing some deep breathing exercises. Somewhere around 6, I finally fell asleep. Of course, the wee ones woke me up just after 7. And you know... once I'm up, I'm up.

I'm still exhausted today, and this is after two nights of no wee ones disturbing my slumber. So really, if I could change just one thing about myself, forget the usual things people ask for -- supermodel-dom, wealth, more time in the day, etc -- I simply would really appreciate the ability to take a nap, even if only just every once in awhile.

How about you? What would you most like to change about yourself?