You're getting sleepy, veeerrrry sleepy....

Sleep - I love it. Remember when staying up late was a treat or a thrill and going to bed early was lame and boring? Maybe that still holds true for some of you out there, but for me - my how times have changed!!! Sure, under the right circumstances it can still be fun to stay up (or out) late, but it's definitely not a goal in my life like it used to be!

In the past year I have thought about, talked about, and answered questions about sleep more than I ever imagined possible. Between being pregnant and having Asher, it's one of the main topics of conversation that comes up (How are you sleeping? How is he sleeping? Sleeping through the night? Are you getting any sleep? and so on and so forth.) The topics of baby and sleep just go hand in hand, apparently. I admit, it makes sense. Babies definitely don't have a reputation for following the household sleep schedule. And it's true that sleep is definitely different for me now that Ash is in the picture. I've always been an 8-hour-minimum type of gal, and I've always slept very soundly. These days, 8 hours in a row doesn't happen very often anymore (my own fault a lot of the time), and if I hear the slightest peep on the monitor now I'm WIDE AWAKE. My friend at work tells me that I'll be able to sleep through the little noises eventually...we'll see.

If I may get slightly off-topic for a moment, Ash has started flipping over and sleeping on his stomach at night now. I'm not sure how I feel about that. My instinct has been to go in and turn him over, but more than half the time he just rolls over again as soon as I leave the room, so I guess that's pointless.

I will say that Ash has been a good sleeper since he was about 11 weeks old. That's about the time he quit middle-of-the-night nursing and started sleeping 7-10 hours in a row, which is obviously wonderful. Now if I could just start going to bed earlier instead of staying up watching 30 Rock on DVR, I'd be all set in the sleep department. Last week I even got a wild hair and went to see a late movie on a work night. I didn't get home until after 1:00, then Asher was up at 5:30. Ouch. It seemed like a good idea at the time!

So, I love sleep. I think having the baby has made me appreciate and love it even more. I think, in fact, that I'll go appreciate it right now.

Sweet dreams!