Why Me?

For reasons unknown but suspected to be related to teething or another cold threatening to show its goobery head, Oliver has been waking up 1-2 times a night.  We walk in to find him curled up, clinging to his blanket, and whimpering.  We pick him up, rock him for a bit, then lay him back down, and it's all good. 

Not a big deal, right?

Except when you're flippin' exhausted and those sad wails tug you out of the deep end of sleep.  Somewhere in the dream you're dreaming, the cry shows up, your stomach does a little flip, and you're pulled to the surface of semi-consciousness.  Then it's Frankenstein-lurching down the hall, miraculously failing to trip over any of the explosion of tiny plastic things with wheels, lights or"music" and break your ankle. 

Here's the thing.  It takes a lot for Michael to hear Oliver wigging out.  He's not faking it, either, he truly doesn't hear it.  From what I hear, this is a commonality among most men.  You know what else Michael doesn't hear?  His own snoring.  And the cat whining obnoxiously somewheres between 4-5 am.

So my evening goes something like this: 

Crawl into bed with husband.  Apply heaviest, most dense pilllow possible over my ear to drown out the snores, and try hard to fall asleep before he does.  At some point, the ear-pillow technique ain't workin' well enough, and I trudge down the hall to the extra bedroom.  At some point, Oliver wakes up, and I do the groan-dread-lurch-pick-up-rock-put back down routine, then return to the alternate bedroom.  At some point, Kitty wakes me up, and I painfully trudge downstairs, gripping the railing for safety, to put her in the basement.  (The day is coming when she will just go down there for the whole night, but I can't seem to give up her furry snuggles as we fall asleep.  Sure, I can snuggle with Michael, but let's be real: he's not so silky soft.  And he snores).  Return to bed for the last hour of my sleep.

Last night, I was rather successful in sleeping through Michael's snoring.  Then Oliver woke up.  "Michael.  Michael!" I nudge-hit him.  "Can you go take care of Oliver?"  He mumbled something non-descript and snored.  Oliver wailed.  "Michael!!!! Please go take care of Ollie," I begged.  Michael sat up, threw back the covers in a dramatic flail, and said angrily, "Why ME?!" before leaving the room. 

Wrong move, buck-o.

I let it be, though because getting angry would just wake me up more, and then the delegation would be all for not. 

It's funny how fury in the middle of the night can do a 180 in the daylight.  I laughed as I recounted the story to Michael this morning.  He laughed so hard that he could hardly respond.

Sigh...the day is winding down, and I will be getting ready for bed soon.  If anyone needs me, I'll be at a hotel.