Oh, What a Night!

I was not cut out to be a single mother.

Jonathan has been in Guatemala all week, providing optometric care in rural villages with a group of students and a few doctors.  Though I spent some of that time with family in Arkansas, the rest of the week was a one woman show back here in Memphis.  The absence of my husband illuminates many areas in which I depend on him, often without even acknowledging it to myself.  For example, Jonathan would have disposed of the dead bird that Weber proudly deposited on our back stoop.  I also had failed to recognize how truly rejuvenating it is when he steps in to help care for Riggins: taking over bath time, watching him while I work out, feeding him breakfast while I shower in the morning.  These are short little breaks, but their absence this week has definitely left me drained.

My need for my husband was never more evident than it was last night.  Riggins has not been sleeping well since we returned from Arkansas; he periodically cries out throughout the night and has been awaking around 5 a.m. and crying in bouts until I finally get him at 6 a.m.  Last night, the nursery was silent, and I just knew that there was a full night of sleep in store for me!  I hit the hay at 11 p.m., spooning with Weber as I dozed off to dreamland.

Until Weber hopped up at 12:30 a.m. and sprinted to the back door where she frantically rang the jingle bell, our little signal for when she needs to go outside.  I ignored her for a minute, but as she persisted in her ringing, I realized that she never gets up in the night.  I drudged out of bed, turned off the alarm, and let her out, standing on the back porch and watching to make sure she was ok.

And, oh, was she not ok.  There's no delicate way to say it...the girl had some major tummy trouble.

I waited to make sure she was alright, and then she returned to the house and we went back to bed where she laid there and whimpered until she fell asleep.

Until 1:30 a.m.

And 2:30 a.m.

Every hour, the poor lady went through the motions again.  Having battled with the stomach flu a time or two in my day, I could feel her pain!  And yet I was just a teensy bit frustrated that the night my baby finally gets a good night sleep, the dog picked up where he left off!

When she hopped up at 4 a.m., I followed her to the back door and opened it.  And there in the dead of night rang out our house alarm, which I had forgotten to turn off.  Brilliant.

I flew to the front of the house, turned off the alarm, and listened for Riggins' cries.

Silence.

Phew.

I flew back to the rear of the house, desperate to let Weber out before she had an accident all over my kitchen.  As I stood on the back porch, I finally decided to just leave her outside since it was close to morning anyway.

I crawled back into bed, and a minute later heard the sound of car doors shutting and muffled voices.  Peeping through the blinds, I saw four men coming up my front walkway before separating and each making their way to a different portion of my house.

My heart raced.

This was it.

Ever since we moved to Memphis, I figured that at some point the high crime rate would catch up to us and we would experience some sort of incident.  And now it was happening.  My home was about to be invaded and I would be robbed.  Maybe worse.  

Just before I hopped out of bed to hit the alarm and grab the baby, I got a closer look at one of the men.

A cop.

Apparently, flustered little Leslie forgot that after an alarm sounds, the alarm company calls your house before sending the cops, just in case it was a false alarm.  When they called, I happened to be on the back porch contemplating the fate of my sick pooch.  They assumed the worst and send two squad cars.

So there they were, four strapping young representatives of Memphis' finest, in my yard.

I threw on a bathrobe and opened the front door, and the four officers stopped their search of the perimeter.  I explained about my sick dog, my overseas husband, and my jumpy assumption that they were robbers.  They got a good laugh at my expense and moved on.

I got Weber and went back to bed, wide awake and mind racing.  I must have dozed off for a minute, because forty minutes later I was wakened by the sound of my little boy, who had slept through the night's adventures with never a peep, and yet he still decided to rouse at 5 a.m.  And so, yours truly has been awake every hour since 11 a.m.  

The moral of this story: Husbands are good for picking up dead birds that make your dog sick and for remembering to turn off the alarm when your dog is having explosive diarrhea (yep, I said it) in the middle of the night.  He would probably also be good at talking to cops on your stoop so you don't have to stand there in a short bathrobe feeling like an idiot.  Husbands are good for these things and much, much more.

That man of mine is going to have one happy lady waiting at the airport tonight!  And as soon as he recovers from his travels, I call dibs on getting to sleep in!