It's a Damn Good Thing We Don't Live in a Cave

I imagine that in prehistoric times--you know, after the dinosaurs but before humans were walking fully upright--that the caveman and the cavewoman lived in their cave with their cavebabies. And you'd think that since there were various large and dangerous animals roaming around (like tigers and lions and mastadons and what not), the male of that particular species would probably sleep rather lightly. After all, it was his job (presumably) to guard the well-being of his cavewife and cavebabies. Granted, I don't know a lot about this period in history, but I would just imagine that if prehistoric men sleep as soundly as my own husband sleeps, this might explain why the prehistoric people eventually all died out.

I came to this astounding and (I'm sure) historically accurate realization last night while I lay awake in bed between the hours of 1:30 and 3:30 (or thereabouts) and toyed with the idea of bopping my dead-to-the-world husband on the head with a pillow (or a book). [Actually, this is a much kinder and gentler version of what I REALLY wanted to do.] At approximately 1:15, Sadie cried out in her sleep. This woke me up. This kind of thing ALWAYS wakes me up. I went into her room, but it turned out that Sadie was not actually awake at all. Back to bed. Just as I'm falling asleep again, Ella starts crying and calling for Dean. Who, OF COURSE, does not HEAR her. I go into her room to find her crying and kicking her bed, and it takes me five full minutes to discern that she needs help blowing her nose. Ten minutes later, I am back in bed, only now I'm on full alert for Ella to scream for me once again. To hell with it, I decided. I put ear plugs in and figured that if she yelled loud enough and long enough, she'd wake Dean up. And then it would be HIS problem if she also woke Sadie up. Fifteen minutes later (still awake), I hear Ella (and yes, this is with EARPLUGS in) stomping around in the bathroom and crying. I get up and go back in her room. End up yelling at her because she is having a hissy fit about basically nothing. [The hissy fit was all because her nose was stuffed up, which is a big problem when you also suck your thumb.] Go back to my room. But OF COURSE I can't sleep because I am just waiting for her to start up again. Twenty minutes later, I go back in her room (it's like 2:30 A.M. at this point) to check on her. She is STILL awake. For crying out loud. I go back to bed. Dean is snoring. I am so furious with everyone in our house (minus Sadie) at this point, that I shove him a couple times to get him to stop. No dice. Back to the earplugs. Finally fall asleep again around 3:30 A.M.

At 5:45, I hear Sadie over the monitor. Pretend not to hear her. Dean waits. Says, "Is it your turn to get up or mine?" We alternate getting up early in the mornings. But seriously?! At this point, I just mutter something about having been up for 1.5 hours in the middle of the night and go back to sleep.

I am exhausted today. And it's a damn good thing we don't live in a cave in some prehistoric jungle somewhere because we certainly all would have been eaten last night unless the cavemom could singlehandedly wrestle saber-tooth tigers or whatever they had back then. Wouldn't you think men would be hardwired to be light sleepers? Or did they evolve into this wonderful ability to sleep through crying and puking babies, midnight bathroom trips, etc., etc.?

I am not a happy camper when I don't get enough sleep.