In the Middle of the Night

“Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night's sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too.”

― Lemony Snicket

OK, first of all, WHO in the heck is Lemony Snicket?  I will out him right now:  American novelist David Handler.  Lemony Snicket (as teachers, parents and...others...know) is the guy who wrote the terribly macabre A Series of Unfortunate Events series which will easily scare your children into behaving.

What was my intent of this post?? Oh, yes...middle of the night....back on track now.  Cheerio.

I was awakened two hours ago by an urgent whisper.

"Mom.  MOM!"

"Ughhhmmnnn."

"Charlie is still on my bed.  Will you please come get him?"  Charlie is our 17-year-old geriatric cat in residence.  Charlie is old and obviously senile, often waking us up with kitty shouts in the middle of the night because he has FORGOTTEN it's the middle of the night and would like to be fed his special kitty food.  Of late, he has taken up residence in Thing 1's room because the bed is low enough for him to still jump on and the covers are soft and cozy on an almost-always-unmade bed.

My children refuse to pick up this cat.  They are pansies when it comes to animals.  They don't know HOW to pick up the cat.  They're afraid the cat will BREAK.  They don't know if he'll SCRATCH them.  I have come into rooms to find them awkwardly curled AROUND Charlie because they want to sit in the recliner but that's Charlie's chair of choice during daylight hours.  And they can't MOVE him. 

So, at 2 a.m., I shuffled into Thing 1's room with a grunt and removed the cat from the bed and put him in the hall.  I adjusted the white noise box fan in the doorway of the room so that the cat would stay out.

I collapsed face first back on my bed and proceeded to go back to sleep.

10 minutes later I hear a soft commotion from Thing 1's room.

"CHARLIE!  I TOLD you that I don't want you to sleep in my BED!"

Sigh.  Shuffle, grunt, shuffle, shuffle.  I removed the cat again and put him in another favorite location:  my laundry basket of mismatched socks in my closet.

10 minutes later.  "CHARLIE!"  Still an urgent whisper.  But more frantic now.

My shuffles were becoming more like strides twenty minutes into this middle-of-the-night farce.

"OK.  I'll put him on MY bed.  Maybe he'll like sleeping with me and Sparky."

Cat deposited on my bed.  Now I had TWO animals to maneuver around (I really need to consider a king-sized bed).  And, naturally, my mind starts going tick, tick, tick, tick...Before I know it, two hours have passed and I have given up sleep for the night.

So, Thing 1 is sleeping soundly in his bed.  Charlie has been fed special kitty food and is now contentedly curled on the recliner.  Sparky is at my feet.  And I have a big pot of coffee and the dim glow of the computer monitor to keep me company.

It's going to be a long day.