In the Still of the Night

I like to sleep. I sleep as often as I can (which is definitely a lot less now than it used to be). I am not, however, an efficient sleeper. It takes me a looooong time to fall asleep (The Professor refers to this time period as my pre-sleeping) and if something wakes me up in the night, it takes me even longer to drift back off. The Professor, on the other hand, is an extremely efficient sleeper. He lays down, closes his eyes, and within 5-10 minutes tops, he is sound asleep. I find this profoundly annoying, and often have to stop myself from trying to smother his happily sleeping self with the nearest pillow; so far I have resisted this urge. He then sleeps throughout the entire night and doesn't wake up until morning. When I found this out, I was astounded; I assumed that everyone wakes up several times during the night. Apparently, I was uninformed.

Thus, when I was awakened at around 2:30 am, I realized that it must have been extra-extra-noisy, because The Professor woke up as well. The sounds that woke us up were the unmistakable sounds of a girl-fight outside. We live on a relatively busy street, 4 stories up, and the sound carries really well up to our open windows. Not that it was necessary, because these ladies were screaming their fool heads off while standing in the middle of the street while traffic maneuvered around them. We peered out the windows, and as others had intervened and there didn't seem to be any physical altercations (and since I couldn't understand what they were actually saying - nosy gal that I am), we crawled back into bed. The Professor, as is his wont, fell immediately asleep; I lay awake for a while, climbed out of bed and read some Sherlock Holmes, and fell asleep around 4:00. Unfortunately, Miss Serious decided that her nose was running and she was having difficulty sleeping right around this time, and came into my room to inform me of the situation. (Lord knows I like to be informed). This is one of my favorite thing the kids do in the middle of the night (vomiting probably tops the list); not only do they come in to wake me up, but as The Professor sleeps closest to the door, they go all the way around the entire bed to wake me up specifically.

I suppose I should feel flattered, but at 4:00 am I am not even remotely grateful for this attention. Call it a character flaw if you will, but I would just as soon they spread a little of this The Professor's way. I guess I should be grateful for the fact that they look to me for comfort. I should probably be more objective about the whole thing, but for some reason, I'm awfully tired...