Tuesday, November 3, 2009

I quit having kids so I could sleep through the night!

I love my sleep. It is truly precious too me. I probably love to sleep too much. Since we bounced back an hour, I've gotten tired at my usual time, which is an hour earlier, so I'm trying to actually go to bed at a better time! I go through my bedtime routine, which some nights feels like forever, then hit the hay. My melatonin knocks me out so I don't just lay there with tons of things running through my mind!

My sweet Nanna is quite the guard dog. On a side note, she announced the arrival of my new cricut machine via the UPS truck. I'm sure that driver had no interest in waiting around when he heard her barking like crazy! So...last night we're all sleeping peacefully when Nanna hears to cats mating in the front yard. First of all, in case you haven't ever heard cats mating, they sound like a baby crying loudly. Secondly, right now Matt & I's bedroom is in the basement so that is where Nanna has been sleeping...until she heard the cats. She went ballistic. I got up to see what the problem was, went upstairs and opened the front door, which of course scared away the cats. I sent Nanna back to bed and I collapsed onto my pillow.

Not five minutes later, Nanna starts barking again for no apparent reason. I get up to tell her to shush and of course she does. But she wasn't done. She started barking like crazy again, of course after I had climbed back in bed, so I hunted down a water bottle to spray her. That shut her right up. By this time, Josh was awake and had climbed in bed with me to snuggle. As I'm trying to go back to sleep, she comes in, puts her head on my foot which is under the covers, and does her low growl, "Aaaaaarrrrrrr." This means, "I've got to go to the bathroom and I can't hold it any longer...."

You've got to be kidding me. But no, of course she's not. So I get dressed, put on my shoes and coat and head out the door with Nanna, also noticing that it's 3:30 am. We're in the process of putting in a fence. In the meantime, I have to keep her on a leash or she runs off. She does both duties (good thing I brought her out) and back to bed we go. At this point I'm thinking we can settle in to finish our night.

How does the saying go? "Hope springs eternal." Nanna started barking again a couple minutes after I was nestled back in my bed. Seriously, Nanna? I'm done with this. I get up yet again, bring her into my bedroom and shut the door. This means she can no longer hear what is going on in the rest of the house! She settled right down and went to sleep. Then I felt a cat jump onto the bed, which is so not allowed. I start kicking around in hopes the cat will take the hint and jump off the bed. No such luck. So I sit up, grab the cat by the nape of her neck and toss her over the other side of the bed...to land on Nanna. LOL! So then cat and dog are quite startled, but settled down quickly. Finally, all is quiet. Hallelujah! Is this a regular thing? Gratefully, no. None the less, I feel like I've been up and down all night with a fussy toddler.

When my alarm went off at 6am, I decided there was no way I was actually getting up to start my day and immediately went back to sleep! As good as this may seem, I startled and jumped out of bed at 7:19 am thinking all the kids were still asleep and would miss their bus. UGH. Luckily my big kids do pretty good to get themselves out of bed and ready for school. We had family prayer and sent them off to school. Luckily the little boys don't leave for another hour so I had to time to get them bathed and dressed for school.

Another harry start to a day, so I feel like I'm running behind. But really, the only thing I'm behind on is my scripture reading and getting a load of laundry switched. Easily fixed. This night of craziness is just a reminder that there's never a dull moment in the Barnson household!

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