Who Do You Have to Blow to Get a Good Night’s Sleep Around Here?
I’ll stipulate that many people surely had a tougher night than I did last night. Tookie, for one. But by my retiring, middle-class, new-parent standards, last night was a pretty rough one. This and that kept me up until midnight. At one a.m., Baby Dog decided it was time for a screaming fit. Mama Dog was the first responder. She changed the diaper, made an offer of water, tried singing and rocking, and nothing worked. I took over and after about four false starts spread over forty minutes, finally got the girl settled down quietly in the crib, though not asleep. I went back to bed, lying awake until the chattering had stopped for a while. Then, just as I was drifting off, I jolted awake to the sound Baby Dog in the other room, saying “Rainbow?” This is her was of requesting that somebody turn on Napster and play “Over the Rainbow.” When there was no response, she followed up with “Nobody?” That means either “Nobody Does it Better” or “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” depending. Then she started rattling off other non-song-related nouns and eventually fell silent again. I started to drift again, only to be startled awake by “Ladybug?” That’s usually a request to have either Ten Little Ladybugs or Little Ladybug read. Or it could be a request to play with her ladybug pyjamas, sitting on top of the dresser. Again, hard to know. The cycle repeated over and over. She’d chatter, fall silent, I’d drift off, and then just as I was about to fall asleep, she’d speak up. I don’t know if she was sleeping between bouts of loquacity, or if perhaps she was talking in her sleep, but the upshot was I didn’t fall asleep properly until close to three.
At six a.m. the alarm rang, and I swatted it off. “I need more sleep,” I told Mama Dog, and reset the alarm for seven. The way I saw it, I didn’t have much choice but to be late for work. I wasn’t going to be fit to function if I didn’t get another bit of sleep. Miraculously, Mama Dog had managed to fall asleep while I was putting Baby Dog to bed, and had stayed asleep through most of the chatter/quiet/chatter cycle. She was well rested enough to get up around six-thirty and walk the dog. I dozed through until seven, and Baby Dog beat us all, sleeping in until almost seven-thirty.
As I was getting my tea, Mama Dog said to me, “Did you notice there was no honking this morning?” It was so. Either the honker didn’t come today or we were both so dead tired that the honking finally failed to wake us. “Maybe somebody killed him,” I said cheerily. Then I thought a second more. “Hey – maybe he was Tookie.”
At six a.m. the alarm rang, and I swatted it off. “I need more sleep,” I told Mama Dog, and reset the alarm for seven. The way I saw it, I didn’t have much choice but to be late for work. I wasn’t going to be fit to function if I didn’t get another bit of sleep. Miraculously, Mama Dog had managed to fall asleep while I was putting Baby Dog to bed, and had stayed asleep through most of the chatter/quiet/chatter cycle. She was well rested enough to get up around six-thirty and walk the dog. I dozed through until seven, and Baby Dog beat us all, sleeping in until almost seven-thirty.
As I was getting my tea, Mama Dog said to me, “Did you notice there was no honking this morning?” It was so. Either the honker didn’t come today or we were both so dead tired that the honking finally failed to wake us. “Maybe somebody killed him,” I said cheerily. Then I thought a second more. “Hey – maybe he was Tookie.”
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 10:09 PM
2 Comments:
Oof...those talky nights are a booger, aren't they? What always amazes me is how cheery and awake Tyler is after one of those kinds of nights, and it is all I can do to keep my eyes open to pour the milk in the cereal.
Hope that the honkless morning is a sign of things to come!
I'm happy to report that we've gone three days without hearing that got-damned honker this week, about which I am cautiously optimistic. Perhaps another neighbor talked to the offending household and told them to cut it out? Who knows? All I can say is that I've woken up in a much better mood lately becuase of the restored peace and quiet at 5:55 a.m.
Post a Comment
<< Home