Missing sleep

If you find some lost sleep somewhere, please return it. I need it back.

You see, I don't get much of it, and even though I try to horde it, it gets away from me - all the time! (Pun intended.)

Lately Christopher has not been going to sleep before midnight. The ONE time we got him to sleep by 9-ish, he woke up at 4am. What's worse (I think?) is that instead of sleeping a sane amount of time, like from midnight to, say, 8am, he's sleeping from midnight to noon. In fact, today he woke up exactly at the stroke of noon and the first words out of his mouth, I kid you not, were these:

"Mom, I want to sleep for half the day."

"Honey, you did. It's the middle of the day right now."

(Insert young, sleepy child giving me a skeptical look.)

"Really, look at the clock." I point behind me. "See the hands? They're both together at the top. That means it's the exact middle of the day. You really slept half of the day!"

Christopher becomes much more alert. "Really? Wow!"

What can I say? Oh, that's right - nothing! I'm too tired to think! Because of course *I* didn't sleep until noon. Nooooooooo. I'd been up off-and-on since 4am. Oh, oops, I mean, I love sleeping from 1am to 4am, it makes me feel fantastic!!! (Insert tears.)

Of course, I try to get some sleep in when the baby is sleeping, but considering that he only sleeps for about 45 minutes every hour or two, it's not like I settled down and slept for all of that, each time, between 4am and noon. But I did make a valiant effort. About the same kind of valiant effort I put into staying awake and maintaining my sanity.