To sleep, perchance to dream

There's this new Oil of Olay ad where they use the same model they had 10 years ago to illustrate how the skin cream has kept her young.

The ad goes along the lines of "Ten years, two children, 348 pre-dawn starts", first showing the model as she originally appeared in press ads, then revealing her "now" look. Voila. No new wrinkles!

I am insanely jealous of this woman. Not because she hasn't aged in 10 years, but because, with two children she's managed only 348 pre-dawn starts.

Gromit is seven in 40 days. So that's 365x7-40= 2515 (give or take for leap years). I probably average one sleep-in a month in that time. So 12x7= 84. That gives me 2431 pre-dawn starts in seven years. And, honestly, most of the sleep-ins are because I've been up half the night with a child. They don't really count.

So you see my point.

I know not everyone is "blessed" with early-rising children. I've heard tell that some kids sleep in on weekends. I've also been told that some kids wake early, but then snuggle in the parents' bed and they all fall back asleep. Ha...when my kids are up, they are UP.

On the plus side, they do go to bed reasonably early, which is a good thing, since the winemaker and I hit a wall by about 8pm. (And, no, putting them to bed later does not make them get up later. Exactly the opposite in fact).

When you are pregnant, you expect a few sleepless nights and early mornings while the child is an infant. But no one warns you that the early starts may last a lot longer than that.

Of course, I wouldn't trade it for the world, yada yada yada. But I would pay good money for just one decent night's sleep with the opportunity to wake up when I was fully rested.

Or at least with no child screaming in my ear.