Jeff just started the next term in school and the kids have a soccer camp this week, so the days and evenings have been full. Since Jeff is working and then going to school I am on my own to get the kids ready for bed and preferably in bed before he gets home from school (this term he is in class 3 days a week). Since they are getting up early and running for a couple hours before coming home to do chores, they are actually going to sleep at a reasonable hour. Well, reasonable for us. I've been getting the kids up at 8am and they are going to bed around 9:30 and seem to be asleep by 10:30. Normally, Damien is still up at midnight, so asleep by 10:30 is amazing.
Anyway, on to why I question my sanity. I managed to get everyone to bed later than I wanted last night, so I think it was about 10:30 when I got the little girls and myself (accidentally) to sleep while the other kids were listening to audio books in the dark. Jeff was still up and doing homework until 1:30am (his Math teacher is young and seems to think that people take night classes because they have their days free for 2-3 hours of homework 3 days a week). Once he finished his Math, he had to do his online intro and homework for his Biology class, hence being up so late. I woke up at about 3:45am sneezing and then lay in bed trying to go back to sleep. I'm sure it is related to my experiences when I was younger, but when I wake up in the night I always question whether there is a reason why I am awake. So, I lay there listening for odd sounds. My house was built in 1958 and has harwood floors, so it creaks and groans a lot. We have kind of a white noise that stays on at night to mask most of the noises and to keep the little girls asleep when Jeff and I move around in the morning. Anyway, I heard something that didn't sound quite right, so knowing that Jeff was up late I decided to check it out myself. The kids were fine and all of them were asleep, but something just didn't feel right. I decided to stand in the boys room for a few minutes in the dark while I thought about what to do, then I heard a very distictive creak that only happens when someone is moving on the floor. At that point I was pretty terrified, so I picked up the boys radio (the best weapon I could find) and demanded in a loud and what I hoped was an authoritative voice "Get the hell out of my house!" That woke Jeff up who managed to find his glasses and come out turning on lights in about 20 seconds - pretty impressive for 2 hours sleep! The only thing is, there was no one there. We checked everything and the kind of locks on the doors (other than the front door which has a deadbolt) have to be locked from the inside. We both noticed an unfamiliar smell in the area where I thought I heard the noise from, but Jeff thought it was still there an hour and a half later when he got up for work. It was gone by 5:45 when I got up though. I think I just don't know my house as well as I thought I did. After Jeff and I checked everywhere (in cupboards, under the table, in closets, etc) and went back to bed, he went back out to turn on a couple lights just in case and I noticed that about 60-90 seconds after you step on a particularly creaky part of the hallway it creaks again. Even with that logical explaination I still found myself jerking awake with every little noise for probably an hour after we went back to bed.
Periodically I find myself wishing we had a decent weapon in the house for protection, but I suspect the mass media brainwashing is well entrenched because I never follow through. The fact that I had bad experiences in the night time as a child, studied Forensic Criminal Science as a credited course (the quote that sticks with me most is "everytime I think I have seen the worst thing that one human being can do to another, the next case comes in" - and the case studies were horrific) and am prone to nightmares makes me more likely to be on edge at night. It doesn't help that 2 weeks ago we had someone come into our back yard and steal a toddler carrier that hooks on your bike (the next day we had a lock on the gate) and then yesterday while the kids were at their soccer camp a store on the other side of the field was robbed. One of the robbers fired a shotgun at employees who were chasing them, but fortunately no one was hurt (though at least one guy got away). It certainly was exciting to see all the police at the other end of the field and to have other cops by us to make sure people didn't leave the way the investigation was happening. All that excitement coupled with being stressed may be making me more paranoid, or maybe my sanity is already too far gone. Oh well, Ariana will not be staying home alone for a while, at least until my nerves settle.
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