Story #28: A Bad Sleeper

(This is one of my all-time favorite photos of myself because it is such a random, ironic commentary on the fact that I just can't get my act together to go to sleep in my actual bed. Here you see that I am asleep on a trampoline right in the middle of the living room floor at my friend Melissa's 28th birthday party. ZzzZZzz...)

My nephew Samuel is what Nathan calls "a bad sleeper". What this means is that Samuel wakes up a lot during the night, can't stay asleep for long periods of time, falls asleep in weird places outside of his bed and then wakes up all fussy and disoriented, and is generally not well-rested.

Some would say that babies, as they try to orient their schedules to the overall schedule of the world, are not great sleepers in general. I would say poor kid, he's a Kotleba. He's cursed. You see, we Kotlebas are not good sleepers. I remember growing up, and even now when I visit my parents, that my dad would consistently fall asleep in his chair watching the news. Attempts to wake him were met with resistance, to the point that we would all just get ready for bed and leave him there where he would remain, upright but unconscious, until a few hours later when he would get up and spend time cleaning the kitchen, locking up the house, taking a shower, and getting ready for bed. He sleeps in shifts, my father, and now so does Samuel. And, so do I.

My fractured nights have gotten worse since January when I actually got a couch, because now after dinner I sit in the living room and read or write or study or work until the time when I suddenly and seemingly with no warning fall asleep: fully dressed, lights blazing, for hours. I usually wake up on my own around midnight but then, Dad-style, have to do the dishes, get in the tub, iron my clothes for the morning...the whole nine yards. By the time I actually get into my bed about an hour has passed and I have somewhere between three and four hours before my alarm goes off in the morning. Let me tell you: seven hours slept in shifts is waaay less restful than slept one after the other.