day 166: oh what a night

Today I have to talk about last night.

And oh, what a night it was.

Kids were bathed, fast asleep, and it was finally my turn to crash.

I made my rounds downstairs, making the normal nightly checks for our safety.

(It doesn't help to know that 4 armed men broke into a house a few miles from here a few nights ago).

Doors locked, alarm set, outside lights on.....wait. Crap. The outside front door light switch was up, "on" position, but definitely not on. Crap. Whispers of panic set in. I could not sleep the night with no light on out front. The lights over our garage and the street light on the corner weren't enough for my sanity. I needed that lightbulb to be working and on. But there was no way I was going outside that late, in that dark, by myself. With a man beside me that I trusted, sure. But not alone. And you know how much afraid of the dark I am.....yes, still at 10 days short of 32 years. Remember this? Yeah. I don't do the dark.

There was only one solution at 10:45 pm. Keep the downstairs lights on. I haven't done that in months, I tell you. It helped a little. Enough so that I fell asleep within 3 minutes of my head hitting the pillow. But that light on downstairs didn't solve all my middle-of-the-night problems....

Shortly after 11, a bedroom door squeaked open. The room that R and McK share. Already? It's fairly common for McK to wake during the night, crawl in bed with me, and try to spend the rest of the night there. But because she saw the light on downstairs, two small feet quickly padded down the steps. I threw my covers off, grabbed my glasses, and went in hot pursuit....only to be met at the top of the stairs by Reagan.....who reeked. "Mom, I'm really sorry, but I threw up."

And she wasn't kidding, either. I'll try to avoid all the grossness that it involved, but it was one of those messes where I didn't know where to start first, or how, or anything. I think I must've stared at it for a full 3 minutes before kicking into action, my brain saying, "Really? I've got to do this now?" Ugh.

Meanwhile, R kept apologizing, my ever-compassionate child.

Ugh.

Forty-five minutes later, with the washing machine sleepily churning, full of a large amount of Tide and Downy, a bedroom smelling freshly of Clorox Wipes and Febreeze and air freshner as to not awake the still-sleeping McK, and a new bed made of blankets on the floor of my bedroom, Reagan whispered to me, "Mom, I knew at supper when I was eating all my food to be a clean plater that if I ate more I might throw up. Guess I just finally did." Yes, dear, you did.

With the downstairs light still blazing, I tried to fall back asleep, the panic subdued but still present. It was a fitful night of sleep, waking at every noise.

At 7:00 am, I woke to sunlight streaming in my window. I sleepily descended the stairs, turning off the light that was now unneeded. So much for those hours of wasted electricity. It helped. It worked.