Side One: Sleep

My sister yawns a lot. She and her husband can’t keep their eyes open past 10 pm. I have had co-workers who complained about not getting to bed until 4 am. My brother is a stellar napper. Why? Kids. The children keep them up, wake them up and deny them hours of good rest.

A fantastic Sunday for Husband and me goes like this: Sleep until 10, make banana pancakes, putter around the house, afternoon nap. When my sister calls on a Sunday and I sleepily say “oh, we were just napping” and it’s 1:35 in the afternoon, she always says it must be nice. Oh it is, Sister, yes it is.

Not author and husband. Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

When my sister was breast-feeding G, she was delirious. He was a ravenous child and she spent the first few months topless, feeding this little monster. One night, in the pre-dawn hours, she had just finished feeding G. Her husband was burping him, and she drifted off to sleep, breasts exposed. My parents’ dog was nearby, and this dog was very curious – about the new happenings in the house and what my sister was doing with G. The dog scurried to my sister’s feet, looked up at her bare breasts, licked her chops and started to hop up for a taste of the glistening goodness for herself. My brother in law shooed the dog away. My sister has no recollection of this because she was too tired to notice.  I have another friend who tried to breastfeed her cats because she was too tired to notice what was next to her in bed. I can say with all confidence… This will never happen to me. I will never be too tired to notice that an animal almost suckled from me. And if I do get into that state, it was my own doing and I can get the sleep I need to keep house pets away from my breasts.

The Upside of Barren-ness is sleeping – in, late, on the couch, in the afternoon, after supper, before lunch, any time you please. I don’t need to steal a few minutes of sleep here and there – I can go to bed and stay in bed for hours. Being barren means you are fully rested, and if you aren’t then it is your own choice, not that of a child.