Place Your Bets

I'm so happy to see that the sun it out today! I find it especially rewarding since I actually slept 6 hours straight without interruption! (Both truly deserving of the exclamation)

Sleep is still an amazing thing to me. After a few years spent reading and writing about it you would think the wonder would be lost. Nope. Baby has renewed my interest. At one point shortly after I started dating Mark, I had a 6-month bout with insomnia. It was easily explainable as stress-induced and eventually went away. During that time I tried melatonin and Ambien (on separate occasions) and realized each works well enough and has its rightful place in the market for the pill-for-a-cure types (like me).

In hindsight, I feel like my "stress"-induced insomnia as well as all of the pills, the marketing, and the money that goes into promoting the "fix" for insomnia is laughable. There is a permanent cure for insomnia. Its called having a baby. Spend a month with a newborn who wakes every 1-2 hrs to eat. Cut to a few months later when you still haven't slept through the night, except the handful of times a friend or family member gave you relief. You'll sleep. Trust me. I can sleep just about anywhere these days. Doctor's office waiting room, accountant's waiting room, the line at the grocery store....just a few examples of places I may have closed my eyes for a minute too long. (To be fair, I'm anti-nap. I generally don't allow myself to sleep during the day because, seriously, who has time for that?)

That being said, sleep is clearly a precious commodity in our house. Step right up and place your bet, the wager is 1 full night of sleep (note that a full night is defined as 8 hours, not 4 or 6). So, over the weekend we had a spontaneous Easter egg hunt(the egg being a piece of chocolate cake). Our bets were placed: I wanted 1 night of sleep, no interruptions; Mark wanted me to write a blog post about his awesomeness. hmmm.mmm... I'll let you know who won in a minute.

First, a little background is probably in order for this sleep wager to make any sort of sense. A few months ago Mark and I had a conversation about "having nothing to eat". I generally go on a stock-up grocery run every other week or so. I plan ahead, buy in bulk, use my coupons, etc. I only buy "quick fixes" on these trips because I have planned ahead for them. If we run out of veggies or baby items, obviously I will make a quick trip to the store. Otherwise, if we run out you likely have to take the time to cook something.

Mark's time is in short supply so he is always about the quick meals. For this reason I make him plates of leftovers and buy endless boxes of cereal to keep him fed. The problem: he is a like a kid in a candy store the day after a big shopping trip. A bag of grapes will disappear in a matter of minutes. A box of cereal? That might last a day or two. Block of cheese, forget about it. Gone! You get my drift. Fortunately Mark agreed that he was guilty of binging on the convenience items so I started hiding his absolute favorites to keep him from eating everything at once. He agreed this was probably the best tactic.

Cut to the weekend. Mark is at home with Isaiah. I am out running errands. I arrive home to see my crazy, wide-eyed husband frantic for something to eat. Remember, preparation is not an option for him. His mind went straight to the goodies that I had hidden. He spent the day trying to find them and couldn't. He was amazed by my skills (patting myself on the back). Of course, I couldn't resist telling him the reason it was so easy was because he had a Y chromosome. Yes, its a stereotype, but a relatively true one. Naturally, he was offended so I explained that for some reason he thinks there is nothing to eat because he can't find a quick option sitting right in front. If I were to put grapes toward the back of the refrigerator, for instance, they would remain unnoticed. Again he begrudgingly agreed that this had some truth to it. He found my stash in a drawer under the dish towels shortly thereafter. So much for my tricks.

So last weekend Mark comes home with individual pieces of chocolate cake. Yum. He is determined to prove that he can hide goodies just as well as I can. In other words, it had nothing to do with the Y chromosome. We places our bets. Clearly he was confident given his request for a blog about his awesomeness. So who won?........ A quick 10 minutes into my search I was feasting on chocolaty, tasty, cakey goodness. Booya!

The moral of this story...do not challenge a woman on a diet to find a piece of cake hidden in the kitchen she practically lives in with the additional reward of a night of sleep.

So now that I have blogged about my awesomeness I want to be a good sport. Even though he lost the bet, my husband is truly quite awesome. Aside from all the things he does for us, like working his butt off and going to school and being a great daddy, he is also endlessly entertaining. What? You want to have a chocolate cake hunt? Don't mind if I do. Who needs a television when you've got entertainment like Mark? Am I wrong people?