Night Time Activities

I enjoy my slumber. If I don't get a full EIGHT hours of sleep, I'm a zombie all day. Graham is the same way. We're also both really ornery in the morning. While most people greet their significant other with a smile, or a "good morning," or an "I love you" upon wakening, Graham and I greet each other with a bad tempered scowl...almost as if we're blaming the other for the fact that the alarm clock is squealing. I get up first, and hop into the shower (okay hop is not a good word...more like "trudge" into the shower). Graham mopes in to brush his teeth. We then both dress in silence. Graham leaves first with a mumbled, "love you," and I respond in an equally lackluster way. It's not until about an hour after wakening (about the amount of time that it takes for both of us to wake up fully) that the sweet "good morning" and "I love you" texts begin. See...we're loving to each other, just not before 8:00 in the morning!

When something/someone interrupts my sleep, I'm not a happy camper. The husband, not surprisingly, is the same way. So why do we regularly interrupt each other's sleep with our weird nightly activities? Take these experiences for example:

While enjoying an amazingly satisfying dream the other night (not that I recall the dream, but I'm sure it was awesome), my subconscious made me aware of the fact that an annoying "tap tap tap" was taking place on my arm. I ignored it and continued sleeping. It persisted however..."tap tap tap." I continued to ignore it. The tapping however, became punching, and I grudgingly pulled myself out of sleep. Graham was PUNCHING me in the arm. I asked him why he was punching me.
He responded...
"Where's the ipad?"
Seriously?
So I responded...
"You really woke me up in the middle of the night to ask me where the ipad is?"
He paused...and I could tell that he had been "sleep punching," because my very direct question snapped him out of whatever sleep-hazed mission he had been on.
He mumbled...
"Never mind." and promptly fell back to sleep.
When I questioned him in the morning he laughed and said that he had been dreaming about the ipad, and his dream had obviously carried him into reality...at the expense of my previously peaceful slumber. While you might think this was a fluke...it was not. He talks in his sleep regularly. In fact he just woke me up last night by yelling about something that I can't remember this morning.

While I could easily end the post here and make it seem like my husband is the only one in this relationship that interrupts the other's sleep...I must take responsibility for my own sleep-interrupting, night time activities. Most nights, I sleep on my back, with my hands stacked on top of my chest or stomach. While in this position, I guess I sometimes tap on my chest in some sort morse code/drumming fashion. Not that I do it intentionally...I guess I just like to make music while I sleep. Iv'e woken up several nights with Graham looming over me holding onto my wrists.
He responds...
"Stop tapping on your chest...it's freaking me out!"
I think my husband should quit complaining and enjoy the rhythm!

So while we NEED our sleep, we keep waking each other up with our strange, and sometimes musical, nightly activities.