Sleep Like a Puppy

Boy do I wish I could sleep like my puppy Sophie does! She plays hard, runs around like a little maniac, tries a thousand times to steal my shoes, then abruptly winds down and crashes into a deep untroubled slumber.

However, since she arrived, I myself have been getting less than optimal sleep. A puppy is, of course, just a baby. It's been enough years now that I had forgotten what nights with babies are like... sleepless! Now that she's 12 weeks old, she's down to only waking up once or twice a night, but the first week or two she was up three and four times. And since I'm not the world's best sleeper in the first place, it takes me a half an hour or so to get back to sleep each time. That adds up to one sleep-deprived Robin.

It's amazing how badly everything suffers when you get inadequate sleep. Workouts of course are the first to go. Intensity, stamina, strength, and brain power all suffer mightily when you don't sleep enough. I guess it's a good reminder to try to get those eight good hours in every night. Karate has been the worst because not only is it physically intense, it's very mentally taxing. My poor partners have had to be patient as I stand there with a blank look trying to recall the particular sequence of moves I'm supposed to be doing. It should be right there in my muscle memory, just ready to spill out of my hands and feet and into action. But apparently muscle memory is still memory and still subject to the inadequacies of a sleep-deprived brain.

I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel now. This weekend the family took pity on me and let me sleep in until 9:00 on Sunday morning, and Sophie only woke once last night, so today I feel almost totally human again. With a puppy face like this though, don't you think she's totally worth it??