Something exciting happened last night at my house. It’s one of those rare things in life…well, in my life, anyway. I can honestly say it has occurred less than ten times (maybe less than five) in my adulthood.

I slept through the night.

And when I say I “slept through the night,” I mean, I did not wake up even one time. I didn’t look at the clock once. I didn’t wake up to roll over once. I didn’t get up to go to the bathroom once. I slept through the night! And when I woke up at 8:40am (my husband tiptoed around the room so I could sleep, and he always takes our daughter to school), I was confused. I knew where I was, and I could tell by the clock it was 8:40am, but I was wondering, “How did that happen?”

I wrote about sleep once before. And when I did, I wrote about the things I have to do to try to get better sleep: exercise, spend time outdoors, take melatonin, and take my restless leg meds. But yesterday wasn’t like that. In fact, I’ve had to stop taking melatonin, because it was causing me to have vivid, sometimes scary, dreams.

I’m wondering if there are other adults out there who have rarely slept through an entire night without waking up once? Or am I odd? Before you even think it…yes, I know I’m odd, but is it odd that I rarely sleep an entire night?

I’m knocking on wood as I type this, but generally speaking, I don’t have trouble falling asleep. My husband always jokes that as soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out. And lots of my friends know I can fall asleep almost anywhere…planes, cars, chairs…anywhere I can get still and quiet. But not tents. I can’t fall asleep in a tent, as far as I know…and I don’t want to find out. But sleeping through an entire night rarely happens.

I have a cold right now. I guess it’s a cold; I can’t ever tell the difference between a cold and allergies. I have a runny nose and watery eyes, and I’m sneezing. So last night, I took some NyQuil before going to bed. NyQuil usually works great for me when I have a cold. It usually stops my runny nose and coughing, and it helps me sleep, but usually, about five or six hours after taking it, just after the medicine wears off, I wake up. But not last night!

I don’t know why I slept so well, but I’m saying a little prayer of thanks right now for that good night’s sleep!

But now I’m thinking about the saying, “You snooze, you lose.” Yes, I know it has nothing to do with sleeping through the night. I know it means that if you move too slowly, you miss an opportunity. The early bird gets the worm. And that’s true in most cases.

But today, in my world, I snoozed and won! I usually wake up at least two or three times a night, so any night that I’ve slept the entire night? That is a big win!