What Was I Doing At 1 AM?

Why, thank you for asking. I was listening to the water company JACKHAMMER my neighbor's driveway. Yes, I did say AM.

Insanely, my children slept through the jackhammering. I know not how.

Forty-five minutes later, as the jackhammering was winding down and I began to hope for the sleep that I still shamelessly desired, THEN my Charming decided it was time to wake. Big kids kept sleeping.

I brought Charming to my bed and did as I do when I'm desperate for sleep. I positioned myself on my side and prepared to be the human pacifier. But Charming is not content to nurse. No. He also has to snuggle. And he's not content to nurse on whatever side I choose to give him. No. It must be my right side (As a side note, I pumped into bottles the other day and discovered my right side is about half cream and my left is skim. How bizarre is that?). And he wants to have his cold little feet shoved into the space between my legs (not my crotch, you dirty thinkers) but there isn't as much space as you can well imagine and I don't feel good about cutting off the blood flow to his feet so I have to position my legs Just So as well. Along with holding a pillow over my head to drown out the incessant BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! of whatever monstrous vehicle is now loading the chunks of cement into the empty dump truck and the WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! of the driveway hitting the dump truck.

I failed to mention that Charming has sucked a BLISTER on aforementioned right mammary gland.

I gritted my teeth and hoped he would soon return to slumber. Which takes much longer considering he isn't sleeping through the noise any better than his mother and I won't let him have a pillow over his head.

Charming finally drops off to sleep and I try to wiggle into a more comfortable position. He notices that there is one square inch of his body that isn't against mine and wakes. I try unsuccessfully to give his the other side as a pacifier. That is unacceptable.

It is now 3 AM.

I lift charming onto my chest where he is not nursing, just sleeping. The noise is now a dull rumble and I again have hope. I doze off.

And then the ringing begins. I tell you a PHONE IS RINGING. Loudly. Except it isn't MY phone. It isn't MY cell. It isn't a PHONE at all. It is...

I have no idea. I wouldn't know because there is a baby sleeping on my chest and I dare not move to look. It seems like every time some truck, or lift, or digger, or loader goes into reverse this phone rings. AND IT GOES INTO REVERSE ALMOST AS REGULARLY AS A PHONE RINGS.

And as soon as it stops, I try to maneuver out of Charming's snuggles. I love them, but my back aches and I sleep best in any position besides my back. I maintained contact on 98% of the contact points, but I dared slip him onto his side beside me.

And I would have pulled it off, too, except THE BLAMIN' PHONE STARTED RINGING AGAIN!

Now I have a phone ringing truck in reverse, a screaming baby, a blistered boob (excuse me, mammary gland) and little to no sleep. I begin thinking about guns. Big guns. And whether waving them would get me in jail. And whether it would be quieter there so I could get some sleep.

And then it all stops. Blissfully stops. Just like that.

AND THEN THE THUNDERSTROM ROLLED IN.

I kid you not.

Now the big kids that slept through the jackhammering and the dump truck dumping, and the BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!ing and the phone ringing, did NOT sleep through the thunderstrom.

It is now 4:30.

I can sleep through thunderstroms. I did. And dreamed of the water company guys doing all sorts of things to my house including but not limited to painting and subsequesntly scraping my windows with a razor at which time I did go onto my porch and ask them WHAT IN GOD'S NAME DID THEY THINK THEY WERE DOING TO MY HOUSE AT 4:30 IN THE FREAKING MORNING? (My neighbor, Tuck, would ask me about now if Christians should say freaking. And I would have to shamefully admit that I shouldn't say Freaking nor In God's Name, but it is my dream and I'm being honest here.)

I'll have you know that the water company moved six houses down and started the process all over again. But I can do dull roar. Besides, it is now 5 AM and practically morning. And I have a sleeping baby back on my chest. And can't move to go tell my bloggies all my misery anyway. And I haven't slept, not really, for many long hours. So I go to sleep.

At 7 AM a second thunderstrom begins in earnest and Eldest, bless his pea-pickin' heart, decides that now is the time to get up and practice playing drums on his stand in drum set (read: six books set up in a semi drum set formation and a couple hangers for sticks). And as angry as I am with him for waking me from the only sleep I feel I got for the night, I know we have to move! move! move! to get out the door.

For it is Monday.

Coffee, where are you?