8 Solid Hours (is that too much to ask?)

I just looked at my watch- it is now 3:45 a.m., and I have been up for fifteen minutes. I finally waved the white flag of surrender, after fighting with sleep ALLLLL night last night. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I value sleep above almost everything else, and normally, sleep and I have a really happy relationship. But every relationship has ups and downs, and last night we were really duking it out.

Here is how my night went:

8:30- I start making noise about getting ready for bed. But we are watching an unusually interesting show on Disney XD, so I am dragging my feet. I get my coffee set up for the morning. I decide against washing my face, since I didn’t wear makeup anyway yesterday, even though I know better (this, more than anything else, is a clear indicator that my happiness levels are dangerously low- I know it sounds insignificant, but washing my face at night is a big deal, and this is a red flag. Must get my life together.)

8:45- On commercial, I let Cam do one sparkler, of the many we have left over from the 4th. While we are outside, someone nearby sets off an illegal firework. I literally yell “The fourth is over, asshole!” into the night air. Realize I am outside playing with sparklers. Feel stupid, but I am so, so tired.

9:00-Make my bed. Crawl into the sanctuary of my covers. Try to stream Phineas and Ferb, one of my top shows to fall asleep to, only to find that season four is no longer available on demand. What the fuck? Find that season three is still ready to roll, so I find one I haven’t seen (not that it matters, because I’ll be asleep in five minutes anyway) and quickly doze off.

9:10- my cat starts scratching on my door. I try to ignore him, but he won’t stop. I yell at the door. He adds meowing to the mix. I huffily throw the covers off of me and jump out of bed, yank the door open and stomp into the living room, opening the front door so he can go out for the night. He stands on the threshold, considering his options. “Get out.” I snarl- I don’t have the patience for this shit. He doesn’t want to go out now. I close the door. He starts crying and scratching again. I open the door and try to set him outside. He runs backwards into the house and glares at me. I glare back. Fine. I’ll just sleep with my bedroom door open so he doesn’t get trapped inside and have an “accident” like he did the other night, but he doesn’t get trapped outside, either, and decide to scratch at my door all night. Fine. That is fine. Just let me sleep.

9:25- my dog, Lucy, wakes me up this time- She is barking like crazy, with a much scarier than normal bark, out into the hallway. This is, like, there’s an intruder, or a wild animal loose in the house kind of bark. I am instantly awake and out of bed. “What?!” I ask her, “What’s in there?” But she just does that weird dog dance, and keeps barking, then runs into my daughter’s room. Luckily, my daughter is in my room with me (or at least it seemed lucky at that moment) because I am terrified to go in there. I sneak my arm in and turn on the light- there is nothing there. I check the backyard, the front yard, and everywhere else. There is nothing there. I go back to bed, but this time I close and lock my bedroom door. The cat can just deal with it.

10:00-Lucy wakes me up barking furiously again. I don’t care anymore if someone is in the house. They can just kill me. I’m going to sleep, period.

10:30- I hear the distinct rustling of the giant cat food bag in my room. I just know Lucy is getting into the goddamned cat food again. I wake up already yelling at her to knock it off. Instead, I find that it is my seven year old, who has decided she would be more comfortable sleeping in the dogs bed, and she is whacking the cat food bag with her leg. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“I just want to lay down here.” She says, “I can hear my videos better.” I look at the dog, laying forlornly on the floor next to her own bed.

“Get your ass in bed, and don’t wake me up again.” I say kindly. I’m back asleep before I remember to tell her to put her stupid Kindle away. My mistake.

1 fucking 30 in the goddamned morning: I am jolted awake by the sound of laughter in my pitch black room. I whirl around, trying to get my bearings, and find my child, pressing her Kindle face down into the mattress so that I can’t see the light coming from it. I can still hear the sound however. She does this in such a smooth, skilled manner that I can’t help but wonder how many times she has practiced this maneuver in the past. The voice of Satan seems to issue forth from my throat-“Give me the Kindle!” I fling it to the floor (only because it has a child proof case, and I know it will simply bounce- I’m mad, but I’m not an idiot) and tell her she must immediately vacate the premises and go sleep in her own bed. I can’t take it. We both know I don’t mean it though- there is possibly an intruder sleeping in there, anyway, or at the very least, a family of raccoons. She starts crying, which means I’ll NEVER get to sleep…so I turn the TV back on. But I make sure it’s  a show she hates, because I’m evil when I’m tired. I fall asleep to the sound of my child wailing at the injustice of it all.

1:45-3:30- Horrible dreams about owing people money, awkward confrontations with friends, trying to pee in a bathroom with a big hole in the door and people trying to get in (which, now that I think about it, that probably worked in my favor- the last thing I needed last night was to wet my own bed at the age of 43), having to look for a job and regretting quitting the one I had, and just generally feeling very stressed out and uprooted. These are what I call “worst case scenario dreams”, and I have them fairly often. It’s always nighttime in these dreams.

3:30-Finally throw the towel in. Realize that a bug of some sort bit me several times, on my fingers and my arm. Curse my life, and all of the cowardly bugs who refuse to bite you when you are awake and can defend yourself.

3:45: Decide I should at least write about it, and make it all worth something. I hope you enjoyed my (hopefully) amusing retelling of my night from hell. And for God’s sake, I hope you slept better than I did! At least I won’t be fully awake for work today. There’s always a silver lining!