7: Midnight Meltdown (Jan 2014)
Teddy was having sleeping problems. For almost a month now, he barely slept for three hours between feedings, and often less than that! What happened to all those lovely 5-6 hour stretches he gave me those first few months?! Kate wondered to herself. She investigated various (and often opposing) theories of how to get a baby to sleep longer, and she and Mister developed their own experiment. They would try to "force" cluster feed before putting him down, trying to keep him up at least an hour, two if possible, before then.
The first night, everything seemed to be going according to plan. Kate fed Teddy frequently the couple hours before putting him to bed, and then she and Mister got ready and crawled into bed only a few minutes later, around 10:30. Kate was exhausted and fell asleep right away--unusual for her, even when extraordinarily tired. As she drifted to sleep, she felt as though her body sank and melted straight down into the mattress as it closed around her in a blanket of soft darkness. All too soon, a loud noise brought her back out of the cottony depths. I wish that cat would shut up...she grumbled to herself in her sleep. She checked her clock. 12:30. And it wasn't a cat...it was her baby, awake and hungry again.
Kate stumbled out of bed, groggy but aware that this wasn't supposed to be happening. Teddy was supposed to be sleeping better. But he wasn't. Half and hour later, and still mostly asleep, she crawled back into bed, ready to melt back into the mattress. But moments later, another noise came...one that had decidedly anti-melting properties.
What IS that?! Kate wondered. She decided it was a low-flying small airplane and tried to dismiss it from her mind. But a small part of her consciousness objected that, while small aircraft were common in Alaska, they were not in Virginia...especially at 1 in the morning. Hmmm. A lawn mower or a leaf blower? she thought next. But that other small voice said, with snow on the ground?! It had snowed yesterday. Snow...no no no. Not a snow blower!
Kate waited for the sound to fade. It lessened and grew and lessened again. And then it stopped! But a moment later, she was convinced. Someone was right outside their front windows trying to start a snow blower, revving the engine over and over again. She thought, How is this POSSIBLE?! It's 1AM. Who would be so cruel to come snow-blow a whole neighborhood in the very middle of the night?! Of course...there were probably lots of people who needed to go to work the next day, and their cars were all trapped by huge piles of snow from the guy who clearly didn't understand the basic idea and purpose behind snow plowing.
After a few more minutes, desperately tired and being kept awake by this inexplicable happening and torturous noise, Kate arose and stalked to the window. She breathlessly pulled aside the curtain, to behold with her own eyes, the reason she was not being allowed to sleep. Un.Be.Lievable! Kate screamed in her head. These horrible people were not clearing the road of snow. They were not freeing the trapped cars for all those impetuous DC workers. They were not, in fact, doing anything worth making such a racket at 1AM and keeping awake pregnant women with badly-sleeping babies! They were simply and merely clearing the sidewalks!
Sidewalks! Kate repeated to herself. How could they be so horrible? How COULD they be SO horrible? How could....how will I EVER get to sleep?
And with that, she sat back on the bed and burst into tears. Mister slowly rolled over, but quickly sat up when he realized the crisis at hand. He held Kate tight and told her to take deep breaths and that all would be well. But the more she heard the terrible noise outside, the harder she cried. She tried to wail out an explanation, but it sounded only like vague vowels: "Owwgoodayeeeooowaaaaa!"
Mister, the wise husband that he was, did not press further. It was some time before Kate calmed down enough to explain what was going on...that she was not crying because she couldn't sleep (the usual reason) but because she was being kept awake by the evil people with snowblowers!
Mister thought carefully about going outside to talk with the evil people, but a few minutes later, they were finished and loading the machines onto the company truck. Kate fell asleep. Mister fell asleep. And they both hoped (completely with out reason or cause) that it would never happen again.
