Sleep, Interrupted

I will remember 2013 as the year I didn't sleep. There were a variety of factors that caused the continual sleep deprivation, and they weren't entirely bad. I was working more, and I decided to at least attempt to have a life again, and those both led to some late nights. Plus Ree started kindergarten, so that meant no "sleeping in" until 6:30 any more, even if it had been a rough night. Factor in four young children and two old dogs, and there were also plenty of excuses to get up during the night and very, very early in the morning. I'm used to Natalia getting up between 5:15 and 5:30 most mornings, but one day in December she decided to start our day at 4:49. That was a new record for us.

There were at least some semi-humorous moments in it. (Well, at least that's what I think in my current delirious state.) There was the moment last October when Michael said, "We've been up for two hours, and the sun is still sleeping. That's funny." Uh, sure. Then there was the night we slept at Jeff's parents' house over the holidays. The six of us were sleeping in the family room in their basement, and for some reason Natalia woke up around 2:30 a.m., and she would not let herself go back to sleep. I tried letting her sleep with me. I tried sleeping in bed with her. We cuddled and I sang (verrrry quietly) and I rubbed her back. She would get drowsy, and every time she would start to nod off, she would sit or stand up so that she didn't actually drift off. There were a couple of times were I actually fell asleep and I woke up to her running in circles, in the dark room, to keep herself awake. Finally, miraculously, she went back to sleep around 5:30. When my mom asked Natalia the next afternoon about the sleepover, Natalia's response was, "I had trouble sleeping." The girl does not lie.

I went into 2014 quite hopeful that this year I would sleep again. But then, thanks to young kids/old dogs/a stomach bug, I had a night where I only slept 3 1/2 hours. Doh. But I took a nap the next day, and though for sure things would get better. But, nah, it's the same old. I did have at least an interesting reason to not sleep last week.

Last Tuesday I was up with Michael at 12:30. I'm not sure why he was up, but he was screaming, so I tucked him back in. Of course Natalia woke up, too, because she is just as light of a sleeper as her mama. (Poor girl.) Then Ree was up at 2:30. I have no idea why. She never gets up unless she's sick, so I gave her cuddles and tucked her back in. I crawled back in bed and was just about to fall asleep when I heard an electronic chirp. Thirty seconds later, I heard another chirp. And again. And again. I quickly realized we had a dead battery in one of our smoke detectors, so I went and stood in the living room so I could determine which smoke detector was torturing me. I figured it out, and then woke up Jeff to see if by any chance he could reach the smoke detectors easily. Nope. Since I was already up, I trekked out to the garage in the cold to get the ladder. (Of course this would happen on a night when the temperature was in the teens.)

I took out the battery in an attempt to find silence. Nope, it was still chirping. Our smoke detectors are hard wired with battery backups, and apparently they chirp until you put in a working battery. So I looked around for a 9 volt battery. Of course, there were none to be found. Jeff got up and helped me brainstorm what devices we had that required 9 volt batteries. We could not think of any. The chirping was really loud and annoying, so I traded my pajama pants for sweats, put a jacket on over my jammie top, and drove to CVS at 3am to buy batteries. I forgot to take a coupon (and I laughed at myself for even thinking about the fact that I was failing to use a coupon), but I did stop at the kiosk to print my Extra Bucks. I paid for my overpriced battery, using my Extra Bucks, came home, and Jeff put the new battery in the smoke detector. No more chirping. Ahhh. I got back in bed, and found my head was filled with work thoughts. I finally passed out again sometime after 4am. I ended up waking up for the day at 5:30 when Natalia decided we "needed" to get up. Yawn.

On the bright side, since that incident, Michael (aka Fire Marshal Mike) has not had to harass us daily to change the batteries in our smoke detectors. We are good until daylight savings time begins. At least he can sleep better.