... and then there was a giant orange gorilla in my bedroom

I may have mentioned before that my dear husband has issues ... sleep issues mostly. He has sleep apnea and has had for many years ... it went undiagnosed for a long while because the doctors thought that he was sleep deprived because he's a fun-and-party-stay-up-late-and-get-up-early-for-work-and-school-in-the-morning kind of guy. Only after we were married, and he had a bed buddy that tried to sleep next to him for any length of time, did we discover that he really does have issues sleeping and had him checked out and sure enough he is in the top 5% ... He stops breathing 95+ times an hour and hadn't had real REM sleep for years! He didn't ever dream, he didn't really fall into deep enough sleep to feel rested and therefore was always tired.

When he was younger (14, 15 - 18, 21, 23 years old ... the years just before we were married) he would sprawl out on the floor at various youth activities, parties, movie nights, etc. and offer, "who wants blessings?" as a kind of bribe for a back-rub or back-scratch or the like ... and, more often than not, the girls would play in to his little sham. Sooner than later he would begin to snore and that would be the end of that. He oftentimes wouldn't make it to the floor and fall asleep sitting on the couch or in a chair or standing up in the corner ... (ok that's a little exaggeration there ... but you catch my drift!!)

The man falls asleep mid-sentence when he's talking! So it's not hard to believe that he also falls asleep mid-conversation while someone else is talking ... before they have said 2 words.

Recently there has been a new development in the snore monster's repertoire...

He dreams now ... and they are vivid ... almost like real life ... so at night when he's extra tired and we are trying to have a conversation, and he's not exactly engaged, dreamland takes over and occasionally I get sucked in ...

The other night he said:
"What?"
"What what?" i said
"Why did you say dangit?"
"I didn't ... you're hearing things ... "
"You just said dangit ... didn't you?"
"nope ..."
"Did I just fall asleep?"
"Yup."

and then a few minutes later:
"Who's grandpa had to eat thru a straw?"
"What? ..."
"I just did it again ... didn't I?"
"uh huh ..."

not 2 minutes later:
"Couldn't get it in there?"
"Huh?"
"In the car?"
"I think we better get you to bed ..."
"No ... I'm awake ... really ..."

mere moments later:
"That's why we had to talk about it."
"Talk about what?"
"Your goals ... ? Didn't you just say something about goals?"
"No. We were talking about this week's calendar ..."
"Oh."

It's funny the first few times, he gets a sheepish look on his face, all apologetic, and tries harder to keep his eyes open ... I like to tease him a little .. sometimes I ask for things that I know he wouldn't normally let me buy ... or I tell him stories about the giant orange gorilla just to see if he heard a single word I said. Mostly I help him take his socks off, turn down the bed, shut off the lights, hand him his CPAP mask, and tuck him in. There's no stopping him when the Snore Monster takes over!!