Sleeping atitudes

I watched Maggie, the parakeet sleep for a long time the other day. She had one leg tangled up in one of her bells and stood on the other foot. Her head leaned against the bell. Looked pretty uncomfortable to me but it seemed to work for her. As far as I can tell, birds always sleep standing up. The only time I've seen birds lying down is when they are dead. The Big Sleep.

Bela, the dog, sleeps mostly on one side or the other with his legs straight out. But at night, when it's cool, he climbs into the window at the head of our bed and stretches out on this stomach. From time to time I wake up and find him at the foot of the bed, laying on his back with his back legs down and his front legs folded on his chest.

Lukie the cat has the most variety in sleeping attitudes. I've often seen him on his back like Bela at the foot of the bed. He's so cute like that. But he sleeps stretched out on his stomach too--which makes him look really long since his tail is almost the length of his body. Occasionally I'll find him on one side or the other but not much. My favorite way Luke sleeps in tightly rolled in a ball with his tail wrapped around himself so you can't tell where he begins or ends unless an ear is sticking out.

I normally sleep on my right side with my right arm under the two pillows I use. But more and more these days I find myself sleeping on my left side, almost on my back but with my left cheek on the pillows..

Since I haven't asked her if I could tell you, we'll let Bern's sleeping positions remain a mystery. Suffice it to say, she has almost as many sleeping poses as Luke but not the rolled in a ball thing....

Before I found out I have sleep apnea, I had more sleeping positions, most of them sitting upright, sometimes stopped at a red light in my car. Not a smart attitude for sleep....

I don't know if your posture in sleep tells anything about you or not. I could probably Google it and find 270,000 places that would tell me about that. But I won't, I don't think. I just find it interesting.

Tegan, our grand-daughter, age 3, can go to sleep in almost any position and 'all at once'. I can almost remember that, but I can't do it anymore. Young children, it seems to me, define the term "falling asleep"--it's just like 'falling down': one minute you're upright the next moment you're on your face. Kids really "fall" asleep. Just like that.

I've heard as you age you find sleep harder and harder to find. I'm not that old yet. Eight hours is my minimum. And since I'm mostly retired, I can do that. And I do love to sleep. That's my final attitude about sleep. I love it. And the dreams...oh, my dreams....