Snoozomaniac

I had an epiphany the other day.  I know, scary. 

Sleeping in is my equivalent of sex.

This will probably only make sense if you're married.  More specifically, if you have few anniversaries under your belt and at least one small child underfoot.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it really only makes sense if you can check off all the above boxes AND you're of the female persuasion. 

Allow me to explain . . .

Mike and I have had this deal for awhile, where I sleep in one day a week, usually Saturdays.  It's a holdover from the days when he was working a more typical job, the kind where he left the house at 6:30 a.m.  We both got up earlier than we liked Monday through Friday, I got the extra zzzz's on Saturday, and he got Sunday. 

Since he's been working from home, I've felt the pangs of jealousy over sleep creep in slowly.  As he technically doesn't have anywhere to be in the mornings, he typically doesn't get out of bed until around 9 a.m.  In his defense, he's up pretty late in the evenings, since that's when the best games are going. Human nature doesn't really give a crap about justification, though, so I naturally get a bit jealous as I'm dragging my tail out of bed at 6:15 every morning while he's snoozing away.

I love and cling to my one day of bedded bliss fiercely, but in the last few weeks I've found myself getting pissed that I'm not getting more days to sleep in.  The kids have been out of school, and Mike's been wrapping things up earlier in the evening.  The other night I found myself stewing about it, wondering why he didn't just offer to give me an extra day here or there, and that's when it hit me that sleeping in for me is the equivalent of sex for him. 

You try it: swap "sleep/ing in" for "have/ing sex" in each of these statements and tell me if you don't see it:

I always want to sleep in.

I would sleep in every day if I could.

I wish my husband/wife  would initiate my sleeping in just a little more often.

I feel realllllly good after I sleep in.

I fantasize about sleeping in.

It seems like I used to sleep in a lot more when we first got married/before we had kids.

I shared this earth-shattering epiphany with Mike, thinking he'd high-five me and bask in the glow of my cleverness.  Yeah, he wasn't amused.  He heard "I would rather sleep my life away than have sex with you."  Which is totally not the case.  I still want to rock his world . . . I just want to sleep a little longer after we're done.

What I meant to say is, that for the first time I think I really get what it's like for him when he craves something a bit more than I do.  You obsess about it.  You whine about it.  You drop hints like there's no tomorrow.  And when the other person just isn't helping you out in that area as much as you'd like?  Well, you get a little pissy about it.  

In the immortal words of G.I. Joe, "Now you know, and knowing is half the battle."

I'm a scientist at heart, so I propose a little experiment.  He lets me sleep in a little more often, and I'll, well, you know.  This is family-friendly blog, after all.  Elena does have a science fair project due next month.  We could dedicate the rest of the month to truly living the scientific method!  My hypothesis is Mr. and Mrs. Six both have a little extra hitch in their giddy-up come February 1.

If I have any more epiphanies, you'll hear it here first.  I know, scary.