I am one of those people who require a lot of sleep. It’s always been that way and I’m pretty sure that I’ve been that way from the womb.

As a child, my mom always worked, so I had various babysitters that always required me to nap. I never looked forward to it and many times fought the idea, but felt so much better when I did.

In high school, I was so involved in activities that it left little time for napping or much of anything. But, I can distinctly remember, in this case, a recurring instance from my senior year. I started the day with an hour of jazz band. We were mostly juniors and seniors  €“ there were about 25 of us. A tight knit group, we were good players that did about 50% life and 50% jazz band! There were always these references to The Tonight Show. Talks about guest interviews, the live band that was used, etc, would happen. The show aired at 10:30 each evening and try as I would, I absolutely could not stay up that late! If I was lucky, I made it to 10pm. Making it to 10:30 was completely out of the picture!

In college, I wised up and scheduled my classes around being able to take a nap. (Seriously? Good grief.) But, if I was going to be able to stay up late and get any sort of studying done, then I HAD to have a nap.

Fast forward to today and I’m still the same way. My husband shakes his head at how I can sleep 10 hours a night (my perfect sleep amount) and then take a 3 hour nap in the afternoon, only to sleep 10 hours again that evening! In fact, I can chug down a fully  caffeinated  Dr. Pepper and sleep for 10 hours. It’s definitely a trait that many envy, what can I say?

As far as my ability to breed others just like me, I have had 100% success. Both kids began sleeping through the night at 6 weeks old. Thank you, Jesus. (Literally.) Avery doesn’t require as much sleep – just a full 8 hours will do him fine. However, he’s my lounge-child. He wakes up around 6am every morning, but you will NOT hear a peep from him until time for everyone else wakes up. The time that the rest of us are spending getting our final set of zzz’s, he is using to wake slowly. He will read, or watch television (which he can operate on his own), or just sit in complete silence and ponder visions of who-knows-what!   Piper, on the other hand, is my exact sleep clone. She does best with about 10 hours per night and wants to nap every day. She was SO disappointed when she started Kindergarten and there was no nap time. It took her quite some time to adapt. But, now, if we are home on the weekends, you can guarantee that she will nap for hours on end.

I know so many people have kids that don’t sleep. I seriously don’t know how you do it! I’ll just leave y’all with a Southern, good ol’ Texas “Bless Your Hearts.”