Chatter vs- Churros

My Lollygagger is a chatter box. She talks all day, she talks all night, she talks in her sleep. No, that's not a joke; she really talks in her sleep. She talks in her sleep all night and into the wee hours of the morning. I wake up to her laughter and chatter in the middle of the night believing she must be awake and playing with one of the cats, or perhaps listening to her radio. When I sleepily crawl out of bed at 2:30 a.m. to see what's going on, I find the sandman has given her a double dose of sleep-sand and she is virtually unconscious.

You would think her mouth would be exhausted by the perpetual motion, but somehow it just keeps going. Have you ever seen the car commercial when a Daddy puts his little girl in the car and shuts the door while she carries on with a story of her school day? He walks around and climbs into the car and the little girl never so much as took a breath. She just kept talking. Well, that's what I'm talking about. The commercial I can turn off, the Lollygagger gives a full time, 24 hour dissertation that never seems to have a point.

Yesterday, she woke up at 5:30 a.m. and followed me through the house as I got myself ready for my work day, all the while engaging me in a conversation about flowers, tacos, and the “eating place with a ginormous yellow M in the parking lot.” Yes, she likes that word, ginormous. No real point involved, she just wanted to talk; some more. I knew from the moment I heard her starting a conversation with me before she entered the room she was going to be a very tired little girl that evening.

She gabbed all morning with her Daddy and with me. She gabbed all day with her summer camp friends. She gabbed all night with her Karate Master, who foolishly believed she had an off button, and she gabbed at me the entire time we sat in the Drive-thru, which took much longer than it should have.

She ate her Drive-thru meal as we made our way home and then began to eat a very sugary Churro for her dessert. As I exited the freeway, I felt a level of apprehension begin to grow in the depths of my soul. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. The chatter was slowing down. It was getting quieter and quieter by the minute. This was so foreign, so utterly bizarre that I turned the rear view mirror to she what she was doing. I was sure she was either up to no good, choking, or fell out of the car. It was none of the above.

What I witnessed was so funny, so out of character for her, I had to tell you about it.

As she talked about her day while eating her Churro in the back seat, she was falling slowly asleep. I was amazed that she could manage to talk while her head was inching below her collar bone. It wasn’t until she dropped her sugary snack that she whipped her head up, searched in a panic for it, located it and ripped another bite from it, that she stopped talking. It seemed she had a new focus.

- Keep that Churro in her hand, eat it, and sleep at the same time.

She would be in full chew, and then just fall asleep. Again, she would drop the Churro, wake up, locate it, stuff another bite in her mouth, and then fall asleep again. This repeated itself until the Churro was gone.

Just when I was sure I was about to have the next 10 minutes of silence, she woke up and resumed her chatter. As usual, in mid sentence, she nodded off. While none of this is especially remarkable, what came next is.

She seemed to have resumed the eating of her now digested Churro. With her head slumped to the side, she mimicked taking a bite of an invisible food item and proceeded to chew on this non-existent sweet.

How fascinating. The Lollygagger not only talks in her sleep, she eats in her sleep too.

Should I take her to the doctor to look into this oddity? Should I call the local Priest to perform some sort of exorcisms? Should I consult a Psychiatrist?

No, I think instead I’ll sit back and enjoy her idiosyncrasies and tuck away the moments that give me a hardy laugh. And I’ll keep sharing them as they happen.

Cheers