I NEED SLEEP

I've been having trouble sleeping for awhile now. Before vacation, I blamed my inability to sleep on stress. During vacation, I blamed it on jet lag. In San Diego, I blamed it on the alcohol. Now, I've realized there are few things left to blame. On Monday night, I didn't go to bed until close to 12:30 a.m. and just as I was about to fall asleep Zeca started coughing. She coughed and wined and called for me for over an hour. When she finally stopped, I couldn't fall back asleep.

On Tuesday night, I went to bed at 11 p.m. because I was sure I would fall asleep but I couldn't so I got up and didn't go back to bed until 1:30 a.m. Miguel woke up at 3 a.m. because of a bad dream and got in bed with us. It took me forever to fall back asleep.

On Wednesday night, I went to bed at 11 p.m. and quickly fell asleep. Then, at 1:30 a.m., there was a beeping sound. I begged for the beeping sound to go away. I quietly repeated, "Beep be gone!" to no avail. Eventually, Luisa and I got up wandering around the house until we found the source of the beep - the security system had gone down. We turned it off and went back to bed and I couldn't go back to sleep!

Last night, I went to bed at 10:30 p.m. but my hips hurt and I had a hard time falling asleep. Then Zecawoke up around 1 a.m. coughing and coughed for an hour. Luisa got up with her but there was no way I could sleep through the coughing.

You could look at all of this and think, "Well, the kids and other circumstances have conspired against our poor little blogging friend." But the truth is that I'm having trouble falling asleep to begin with and then falling back asleep if I wake up in the night. I have heard of this happening to people.

"What people?", you ask.

OLD PEOPLE!

I am now an old person with creaky hips and an inability to sleep and I worry that if this continues I will soon be buying pajama jeans, falling prey to telemarketers and having all my meals at Old Country Buffet. I don't want it to come to that. Not yet, at least. I want to frolic and play and eat meals that don't involve steam plates! I am too young to stuff Kleenexes in my bra and wear a shawl! I want to sleep - not like a baby because everyone knows babies don't sleep. No, I want to sleep like a teenager. I want to sleep a kabillion hours a night and then nap in the late afternoons when I'm stuffed full of Doritos and Coke. I need sleep.

Somebody please make this happen...preferably without hitting me in the head with something hard.