Sleep Patterns

There is an old episode of Friends where Joey has a little problem with sharing. He's on a date and the girl reaches across the table and eats french fries off of his plate. Later, as Joey is explaining to Phoebe why he won't date the girl anymore, he yells, "Joey doesn't share food!" It became one of the most famous Friends quotes. Maybe. I really have no idea. I know I quote it a lot. Kind of. See, I change two of the words. And then it sounds more like, TROY DOESN'T SHARE SLEEP!

When my husband (my wonderful, adorable, dear, sweet husband) and I were dating, he informed me that he could sleep anywhere. He prided himself on being able to sleep on closet floors, underneath beds, chairs, ledges, jagged shards of glass and shrapnel. He could fall asleep anywhere in record speed, he boasted. After we were married I found out that this talent involved a shirt wrapped around his head to keep the light out and a fan whirling all seasons of the year, rain or shine. It wouldn't matter if we moved to an igloo just outside of Barrow, Alaska, we'd have a fan pointed directly on our bed.

The man may be able to fall asleep anywhere, and he can nod off in a matter of seconds which is simply an incredible sight to behold, but he does not like to be disrupted once he actually achieves his pursuit of the dream world. In our bed, the comforter has to be folded over so that it does not come into contact with him. This creates a retaining wall of blanket and effectively keeps me out of his slumber bubble. Should the comforter creep over and touch him, the sleep would be positively disrupted. He has to untuck the sheet from the end of the bed because otherwise his feet become claustrophobic--or something. This is a serious problem for someone like me. Someone who is neurotic. Someone who'd sleep in a fully made bed if it were at all possible.

The other night we had a situation. It was warm and we decided to take the blanket off the bed for the summer. Troy threw the comforter in a heap on the floor, removed the blanket and threw it into a pile. And let's just face it, there was no way I'd ever be able to fall asleep knowing that so many innocent covers were spending a miserable night in a wad. I had to fold the blanket and put the comforter back in its proper place. Yes, I have problems. But this is not a post about my neurotic cleaning genes. In my defense I come from a long line of clean freaks. The good news is it seems to be getting better with generations. There's hope for my children. But this isn't a post about that. It's a post about how TROY DOESN'T SHARE SLEEP.

He doesn't share it with the comforter, the sheet, the light, or any possible outside noise. He only shares (and I use that word loosely) it with me because it is one of the perks of marriage. Along with filing jointly. He'll cuddle with me for awhile and then practice the hug and roll method. Hug for her, roll for him. Safely. To the other side of the bed. On the other side of the retaining comforter wall. Where he can don his head shirt, kick his feet out of the sheet, and climb into his dreams. He does not like to share sleep with noisy almost four-year-olds. Except when said noisy almost four-year-old spots the race car that his daddy made him out of cardboard and darts in to the sleep chamber to thank him.

He'll share his sleep then. He'll share it in the form of a proud smile--the only part of his face we can see poking out of the shirt--because he's a good daddy. Even if he has totally bizarre sleep patterns.

Dear Troy, you hijack my blog, I pay you back. I'm just saying is all...Signed, the one on the other side of the bed.