Nothing to See Here…

Man, I slept good last night.  I went to sleep around ten o’clock.  I said “Honey, where is my fluffy purple pillow?” (because the man requires seventy-two pillows to sleep comfortably and sometimes one of my meager three pillows will get lost in the fray.)  He handed me my pillow and immediately turned his back on me.

“What did I do?” I asked.

“I can take a hint.” he said.  “I know that ‘hand me my pillow’ is wife-speak for ‘you’re not getting any tonight.’”  OFF THE HOOK, I was.  So I turned over with my fluffy purple pillow and went to sleep.

I slept like a rock until 4:00 AM.  I heard “Mom” and a pause and then “Mom” again.  Did I hear it or was it part of my dream?  I listened, nothing.  Quiet.  Figuring I probably imagined it, I tried to go back to sleep.  MOM (pause) MOM - again! 

I leaped out of bed and threw the door open.  Nothing.  No one at the door.  I ran down the hall into Sarah and Jadyn’s room.  Sweet angels sound asleep (gotta love ‘em when they’re sleeping, huh?)  I knew it wasn’t Raena because the words didn’t come through the baby monitor that sits about four inches from my ear.

Back to bed.  OK, I told myself, you just imagined it.  I fluffed my pillow and pulled the comforter up determined to get my last two hours of sleep.  But I was wired.  My heart was pounding and my brain wouldn’t stop. 

I KNOW I HEARD IT. 

The house is haunted.  No, no - maybe it’s one of those weird things that you see on the Unexplainable Mysteries of the Universe TV specials.  You know what I mean, right?  Where a woman bolts up in bed swearing that she heard her grown daughter who is 100 miles away and has just been in a car accident?  Or the victim of a crime?  Or had her heart broken by her boyfriend who she caught cheating with some hussy?  OR DIED.  SOMETHING.

I was convinced.  Obviously, this was one of those psychic moments (hey, I said PSYCHIC, not psychotic! there is a big difference.)  One of my girls was speaking to me across the distance.  What if something bad happened?  What if they needed me?  What if…?

When the big girls were younger, living at home, I had fear in me.  They were invincible teens and they had driver’s licenses and they probably liked beer or wine or whatever and I SET THEM LOOSE ON THE WORLD.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?  What if they weren’t the sensible girls I raised them to be?  What if they did something stupid?  OH GOD, what if someone else did something stupid and they were the victims of it?  I’d get heart palpitations just thinking of it.

And if the phone rang?  Forget about it.  I would DIE, literally.  I would have a heart attack from the fear and DIE right there in bed.  I swear, it happened several times - late phone call, the ringing phone sent visions of car wrecks and other horrible things into my brain and then my heart would explode and I would die.  But I always had to go to work the next day, so I didn’t get to stay dead for long.

So I survived those years (but? ha! joke’s on me, ’cause I went and pushed out three more crotch monkeys and so really I’m just on a little break from the terror.)

My big girls are older and hopefully a little less invincible-thinking and I worry less.  I haven’t died in the middle of the night for a long time now.  But last night, I came awfully close.  I was sure there was something very wrong, massively wrong, terribly wrong.  I was sure I couldn’t have imagined the MOM (pause) MOM thing.

By now it was 4:19 AM.  My husband hadn’t budged.  HOW CAN HE SLEEP THROUGH THIS CRISIS???  I nudged him (hey, if MOM (pause) MOM ain’t happy, ain’t NOBODY happy) and he turned over and adjusted thirty-seven of his seventy-two pillows and happily went back to sleep, this time facing toward me.

FINE.  I said.  Fine.  Just FINE.  I’ll just go back to sleep despite the fact that my daughter may be clinging to her very life having been pushed over a balcony by a malicious intruder and calling out MOM (pause) MOM.  Whatever.

So I settled back in trying to press my exploded heart back into one piece, as if it was made out of Floam.  My Floam heart and I attempt to fall back asleep.  In spite of the horrible thing that may or may not have occurred.

Next to me, I hear my husband softly snoring a very weird snore.  What the fuck?  I lean in a little.  MOM (pause) MOM. 

I kid you not.  It was his snoring!

It only took twelve of his seventy-two pillows to suffocate him right there and then.

FINALLY I was able to get back to sleep.

It’s tough being a mom.