This Is Why I Don't Sleep Well At Night

As I have written before, there are plenty of reasons why I don't sleep well at night. The main reason is the small strip of bed that I get to sleep on. This of course is a direct cause of one little soon-to-be 5-year old using my back for unconscious kickboxing training during the night. However, neither of these nightly occurring events could hold a candle to what happened last night.

So in order to keep this from being a recurring event, I am going to put this out there to clear my head and hopefully keep such silly thoughts to rest.

Last night I dreamt my wife was pregnant. Yes, I know, that in itself is scary enough but it gets worse.

Last night my wife gave birth...

...to five snakes.

Not just any snakes, mind you, but those King Cobra things that can raise their heads up and look at you with that evil-looking grin on their faces. Now imagine waking up seeing five of those devilish things looking back at you.

I am getting the heebie-jeebies just writing this.

Somewhere during this dream there was a giant python that I figured out was supposed to signify me. Not because of the obvious reference to my manliness, but due to the fact that the python was the father of those five little slithering serpents.

Ok, now that python had better have been me.

I woke with a start and swearing I felt one of those snakes weaving around my feet AFTER I was awake. Ugh! I am not a snake person.

Never mind the fact that I find out later that Leslie's mother also had a dream that Leslie was pregnant - with a boy. Never mind the fact that Julia stated out of the blue that there is a baby in her mommy's belly. No, it's me that has the dream about Leslie giving birth to five freaking cobras for crying out loud.

Maybe I need to sleep on the coach for awhile. For the sake of my sanity as well as my back.

My record is now 1 win, 117 losses.

It doesn't matter how late she is up the night before or how sound asleep she is in the morning, when I am home and Julia needs to get up for school, all I have to say to get her up and going is one simple line:

"I guess I am going to beat you getting dressed."

You see, Julia has her mother's competitive gene. If there is even the mention of her getting beaten at anything...all of a sudden this stubborn little child turns into Super Girl determined to make you the loser of this challenge that lay before her.

Usually, once I say those words she is up and flying into her room, only to return two seconds later fully dressed before I had the time to get my bones to quit cracking. If I am really quick, I may get one sock on but that is all before she proceeds to taunt me with "I beat you! I beat you!" Everyday like clockwork, 100+ days during this school year - it was the same thing.

That was until a few weeks ago.

It was Julia's second to last day of school and while it appeared to be another normal morning with her dashing into her room to change into Beautiful School Girl, I noticed something odd. I was able to get both socks on...and pants with no Julia gloating.

"Everything ok, Julia?"

"Yeah, everything is fine."

I put my shirt on and snuck over to her bedroom door and peeked in. Julia was sitting on her bed - almost fully dressed, but just sitting there. I say almost because she had everything on except one arm in her shirt - and she seemed to be zoned out.

I took a few steps back and made enough noise to announce that I had finshed getting dressed and was heading downstairs for breakfast. Julia quickly exited her room fully dressed - complete with both arms in her shirt and exclaimed defeat...

"Oh Daddy, you beat me!"

Suddenly it hit me. She was sitting on that bed - probably for minutes - with that arm sticking out of her shirt waiting for me to finish getting dressed just so she could let me win this one time. As we walked down the steps together, I asked her about it.

"Did you let me win?"

She didn't answer with words, but with the biggest smile that melted my heart.

She gets that from her mom too.