Hopefully she has some comfort in knowing she is not the only freakish sleeper in our family.

'You scared the shit out of me last night'

This phrase was uttered to me in the early recesses of the morning as I was either a) making my way from the bed down to the couch wrapped in my new (huge) fleece blanket that I brought back from Canada, or b)making my way back up to bed wrapped in my fleece blanket as Andy came downstairs to get ready for work. I was having difficulty getting to sleep last night due to a dry throat and sore ear, something that was only compounded further by Andy's snoring. He's still getting over his cold which makes his breathing at night worse than normal. After a very broken sleep I finally gave up and when to spend the last few hours of the night on the couch curled up with Molly.

This morning as I was driving to work, I recalled him saying this but also remembered I didn't pay any attention to what he might be talking about. At 8:15 a.m. it suddenly came back to me. In the earlier hours of the night I had been on my side under the covers and opened my eyes to see this HUGE spider dangling from the ceiling in front of my face. Now spiders generally don't bug me, but this baby was the size of my fist. I opened my mouth, screamed and proceeded to hide under the covers, shaking like mad. Andy had much difficulty in convincing me that there was nothing there. Fuck me.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened. There have been times in the past when I've seen things that aren't there, and I certainly can't go to sleep at night until all the closet doors are closed - firmly. While I was at home over the holidays Tawny and I had chatted about her sleep patterns and how she has a clinically proven sleep disorder. (Something she has talked about over on locobellatuna.) She has even reached the point where medication has been necessary. I myself do not yet feel ready for this, as it's something I think I'm able to manage on my own especially while it's occurring infrequently. Every now and then I experience times when I suffer bad bouts of insomnia and cannot sleep at all, thus spending the night downstairs reading or watching tv. Thankfully these times are few and far between as it is very difficult to make it through a full day on little or no sleep. Luckily this morning I'm only suffering from my physical ailments and not feeling overly cranky or irritable. I do however have the satisfaction of knowing that I can lay down for a nap this afternoon before the kids come down.