The sleep thing

The whole house was asleep at 10 o'clock last night, except for me. I stayed up another hour-and-a half to get some things done. This was to be my night to get eight hours of sleep, which meant I would have to stay down until 7:30 in the morning. I thought I could do that.

At first light, May woke me up to ask if I were going to be home today. I told her I needed more sleep. She woke me up twice again before 6 o'clock, and each time I said I was trying to sleep. After the third incident, she got up and started pacing around the bedroom. It pushed a few buttons for me. "Every day you sleep until 8 o'clock," I said, "while I get six hours of sleep. And now, on the day I could sleep until 8 o'clock, you insist on waking me up." Oddly enough, that didn't help matters. I invited her back to bed.

She was on her knees next to me, leaning forward with head in hands. She said, "I just thought when I got this house, it would be a place where people could come... I think this is my house, I don't even know..."

Her use of the first person pushed another button.

"This is OUR house," I said. "It's not just YOUR house." And from there, we went to this:

"I'm sorry, our house. I just want to stay here."

"I want you to stay here too, but this is a circular argument. You are going to stay here, unless you keep waking me up to tell me you want to stay here."

She managed to laugh through the tears.

"I don't want you to send me away..."

"I'm not going to send you away -- unless you keep waking me up to tell me you don't want to be sent away. If you keep waking me up to tell me you don't want to be sent away, you're going to be sent away. You got that?"

She laughed and nodded, and then all was well. She left the bed and opened the blinds to see if we got the rain that was predicted for last night. And I was wide awake, with another six hours of sleep. But at least they were straight through; I work with a lot of moms of young families who would probably see six hours of sleep as a wonderful gift, and six uninterrupted hours as the lap of luxury.