"Oh, For A Good Night's Sleep" (2000)

(Click the picture so you can read the article.)

Believe it or not, that's me in the picture above (circa 2000).

Twelve years younger... and I actually look more rested than I feel in 2012. I certainly have less hair in total, and the hair that remains is flecked with gray. Plus, I have four more kids. (So does my wife, but she looks far better than I do!)

The "kid" pictured above is still a kid but he just turned 13. Officially a teenager, though he's been eating like one for a couple of years, it's hard to believe that he ever kept us awake all night with his crying!

This is a falsehood.

Even if they're blurred together, I remember a lot of times being kept awake or startled from a deep slumber by plaintive cries.

Sleep interuptions continue to this day. It's just going to happen with five kids in the house, not to mention pets. One could wake up from a nightmare and just be scared; one could think he's sneakily getting away with playing Minecraft at 3:00AM; one could be roaming the house because "Maybe it's time to get up"; and the dog could be barking at something outside that's hiding in the shadows. Or raccoons attempting to access the garbage cans.

I've more or less resolved myself to the fact I will probably never get another night of solid, I'm-so-glad-to-be-alive! sleep.

But back to the article. This is a piece I wrote that appeared in The Province newspaper back in 2000 and I thought I should get it onto the 'net so it can "live forever." Photocopies of newspaper articles won't be around forever, especially considering the kind of filing system I employ, so I post it here for prosterity.