Here is a quick quiz for you today. No worries, it will be easy. Name two sounds that happen in the middle of the night that will rouse a mother for the deepest wells of sleep to an immediate fight or flight stance?
I am taking a poll. I think answers are the phone ringing in the middle of the night and the sound of a child gagging (you know, that sound that lets you know something will be spewing any moment.).
When these two sounds happen a mother is battle ready in less than a nano second. In the case of the phone a father will also react but I still think it is a second behind the mom. In the case of the gagging, well I would want to sleep through it if I could and I hold no grudges, it is just the way we are wired.
The day after the presidential election I, like so many other Americans, was walking around in a stupor. But unlike most it was not because I stayed up all night watching the returns. It was because I was rudely and brutally awakened by the two worse sounds you could here in the middle of the night. 11:30 pm I was jolted from the most wonderful sound sleep by the phone announcing "College Girl". I was out of bed, heart in my throat and pounding wildly in my ears before the end of the first ring. "WHAT'S WRONG!?" came out of my mouth and a silent "oh God, please" was offered up. The answer was confusing the still asleep side of my brain. "He is winning."
"ARE YOU OK?" (and yes, I was shouting).
"Yes, he is winning, people are cheering, people are crying."
"WHAT?! ARE YOU OK?"
"Yea, oh, were you asleep? I thought you would be watching the election."
And the conversation continued in this vain until my brain woke up enough to realize College Girl was very ok and was going to continue talking about this if I didn't put a stop to it immediately. "Good night, I will talk to you tomorrow."
Poor husband was standing there as bewildered as myself and muttered, "what was that?"
"I don't know, something about Trump. Go back to sleep, she is fine. Though she won't be if she does that to us again." Fortunately, I am can fall back to sleep quickly if I haven't fully woken up. My husband can not.
Fast forward 6 hours. My subconscious recognized the sound of a child about ready to throw up and allowed me to scoop the five year old up and off his brother as he was climbing over him heading towards me before I was fully awake. Get out of bed, scoop, turn away from bed, run while noting to self, "when did the 8 year old show up in the bed?" Also pondering why the said 5 year old passed the bathroom on the way to my room, gagging and heaving, to announce he did not feel well. What is up with that?! Luckily, it was a false alarm that produced no huge mess. 5:30 am perfect time to cook a 4 course breakfast for a very hungry and awake 5 year old.
I spent the rest of the day drinking lots of coffee and wondering how many hours of my life those two sounds stole from me.
