Sleeping Patterns: A History

To say that I was a normal child is a stretch.


Scenario 1:
Imagine a house on Christmas morning with a five-year-old little girl inside. What would the average child be doing at, lets say, 9 a.m.? Foaming at the mouth to open her presents to see what wonderful things Santa had left? Or would she be fast asleep in bed? I, of course, don't know the true answer to that question as I was always fast asleep. The first clue to my parents that something might be slightly off with their child should have been the fact that I had to be wrenched out of bed around noon to open those coveted presents.


Scenario 2:
As a child, I adored everything Disney. I was fortunate enough to go to Disney World just about every year from the time I was old enough to appreciate it until I was a pre-teen. As much as I wanted to absorb every aspect of those magical parks, and stick to our itinerary in order to fit everything in during our trip, I would absolutely beg to be allowed to sleep. I recall one trip with another family that has a girl my age and twins two years younger than us. I was about nine. The other family had a room adjoining ours and, as would be expected, the other three children were up at what seemed to be the crack of dawn squealing and ready to go. Since I was the only other unfortunate one in the bed, they descended upon me. Its been a while since that trip, and I don't exactly recall the details of what was said, but I do know that, at one point, I rolled over and cried because they wouldn't allow me to sleep. How many nine-year-olds do you know who do that?


Scenario 3 - School Time:
When I was 6 & 7, my mom would have me shower in the mornings in the hopes that it would wake me up. In fact, quite the opposite occurred. I would lay down on the shower floor and go back to sleep. In the shower, water on. Talk about a productive morning...
After it was determined that the whole shower in the morning thing was clearly not working, it was eliminated from the routine. This time, all I had to do was get up, walk to the bathroom, get dressed and brush my teeth. Simple enough, right? Wrong. To start off with, my mom had to physically get me out of bed and walk my zombie-like self to the bathroom where she would leave me to get dressed. Once in there, I would curl up on my clothes on top of the vent on my cold tile floor and go back to sleep.


It may, or may not, come as a surprise that I was labeled as being a lazy child. Sure, Scenario 3 could have come about due to pure laziness, but in context with my two other scenarios, it is fairly clear that something was not quite right.


In addition to all of these problems waking up, I was also having trouble falling asleep. I remember laying awake in my bed, staring at the window while everyone else was sleeping, at the age of three. When I was about ten, I recall staring at the clock, watching the time just tick by until it was 3 a.m. Sometimes, I would be reading or working on homework (I am a productive night owl... Really, it's when I get things done) and fall asleep, only to wake up at 2 with the lights still on and my face in a text book. Not exactly typical 10 year old behavior, as far as I know.
I sometimes cringe, looking back on my childhood sleeping patterns and habits. To think that no one, not my parents, grandparents or pediatrician, noticed that something was amiss is slightly unsettling. But, of course, hindsight is 20:20, and no one can be blamed for such an oversight.
Now that you are fully aquatinted with my childhood, we will move on...