Sleep? What's that?

Sarah, our two yr old, rarely naps and can run on "turbo" from 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. without stopping for gas. She woke me up at 2:30 this morning, wanting a drink of water, and I haven't been asleep since, but she's sound asleep now. I've always had the same ability to sleep little and work (or play) hard. We're even seeing signs of it in our 4 month old, Frances, who takes two or three fifteen or twenty minute naps a day. It's go, go, go for my poor wife and, although she may not see it, I feel for her! I know that she's a normal sleeper who needs 8.5 hrs a night but only gets 3 or 4 hrs of sleep at a time. She, somehow, manages to keep her sanity (although her patience often wears thin by the day's end, as does everybody's). I thought that we were just freaks of nature and, it turns out, we are! A new study by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco revealed that the gene DEC2 regulates the "internal clock" and that some people have a mutation in this gene, causing them to sleep less than the "average" individuals yet function just as well. It also showed, in mice and humans, that it allows us to recover from sleep deprivation faster than the average person. My wife, on the other hand, needs something to help her recover from us! God love her... I know I do!