justifiable homicide

Those of you who know me well know that I am a force to be reckoned with upon awakening. I require 10 minutes minimum of "me time", in which to stare into space, shake off my dreams, and get ready to face the world, starting first with facing the microwave to make my morning tea. What you may not realize is that I also can have entire conversations (cranky ones) in this 10 minute period and not recall them at all later. My husband realizes this, so it was with dismay that I found myself awakened by his voice on the phone at 9:45 this morning. This after having been awake half the night feeding Lauren, and having only just fallen back asleep for the marathon 2 hours at longest stretch.

See, last night Ryan had a screenplay contest entry to submit which needed to be postmarked on May 1st. I helpfully volunteered that there is a post office by the airport which closes at eleven p.m., so he had more time than he thought. Well he used this time, every last second. I was helping him from about 8:30p-11. One printer jammed, so we ran downstairs and hooked up the spare. We had a moment of despair when we couldn't find a 3-hole punch (his original plan was to drive all the way to Westwood, borrow the one at Kinkos, and then drive down to the post office, all in the span of half hour). He decided to just submit it on regular paper. All sorts of paper jams and other mishaps ensued, as you might imagine.

It was a very stressful time. Lauren slept through this. Her grandpa watched her for us. When I got back at midnight and woke her up to eat (guys might not understand this part but if the baby doesn't eat every 3 hours or so, the momma is in pain. we look like dolly parton, which is not as pleasant as it sounds), she would not get back to sleep right away. She then was up half the night wanting to play and chattering, and eating, eating, eating, which meant I was up half the night as well.

This morning when Ryan was getting ready, he said "I know this is going to sound mean because probably you didn't, but I slept SO WELL last night!" I wanted to shoot him, but I did not. I smiled sweetly and went back to sleep UNTIL the phone jolted me awake at 9:45. I didn't answer it. It kept ringing. Like 8 times in a row. So I got up, and it was him. "Hey, I'm really sorry to bother you but I left my planner at home, could you please check it and see what appointments I have this morning?". This meant I had to get up and look around the house for it. I spent a good 10 minutes searching the house and the planner wasn't even here. It is probably in his car. Why can't he get a Palm Pilot like the rest of us?!

Of course, when I got up, I was sleeping next to Lauren, which meant she woke up too. So then she was awake and needed to eat so I couldn't get back to sleep. So here I am, 3 feedings later, 1 dog-feeding, and 3 loads of laundry & 1 dishwasher emptying and reloading later, typing this.

Did I mention that on Friday, I actually had a medical problem from being so sleep-deprived? I started seeing spots and got tunnel vision. There was a ringing in my ears and a pain at the front of my head and my hand was going numb. I thought I was having some kind of stroke or seizure until Ryan reminded me I had slept about 2 hours that night and probably 3 the night before and very little the rest of the week. So I slept it off and woke up feeling better. But it was, literally, a wake-up call. I need to make sleep a priority. So dear readers, if my husband calls me again and disturbs my precious sleep, and then you read about his homicide in the papers and think what a nice man he was and how shocking it was that I could do something like that, now you know!