Attack of the Night Farts

Even though I am always exhausted lately, I have had some trouble sleeping at night because, you know, my body totally hates me and love to see me suffer. (Oh wait -- you probably already know I suffer from insomnia, right?) Because I can't get to sleep until after 1 AM lately, I lay in my bed with my sleeping husband on the left and my sleeping dog on the floor on the right. It's so sad to watch others sleep when you are wide awake. But last night? I faced a deadly DEADLY situation. One that almost took the life of my unborn child.


It was the night farts.


I mean, when I am awake for like five hours after my husband falls asleep, I expect I might encounter a fart or two. Everyone farts in their sleep. EVERYone. If you are reading this and thinking you are exempt, you are a fool about farting. I have done extensive research and am basically a PhD in night farting, so ... trust me.


Okay, so I smelled a Jeremy night fart. No big. I rolled over and thought to myself, Man, I really love this guy if I am cheerfully able to ignore a stinky fart. WAIT, this makes me a GOOD WIFE. No, a GREAT wife. Oh my god, I am the world's best wife.  Well done, Veronica.  Well-freakin'-DONE!


Now, it WAS a fart, so it was a little stinky, but I was holding my own. That is ... until the a new smell wafted over my face. DOG fart. Now that is not a lovely smell.  I sat up, terrified.

Then, as they both continued wafting, wafting, wafting toward me, I realized what was happening. What happens when the fart of an average man combines with that of a canine?  That's right. They combined into one über-fart

Immediately, I covered my nose to keep out the smell. AHHH! Too hard to breathe with my lovely child pressing my lungs into tiny three-inch pockets of air. I sat, wondering what to do, until I realized what I was doing -- allowing the über-fart to ENTER MY BODY, meaning it would travel down the umbilical cord to my tiny, innocent baby!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!

I covered my mouth as well before I realized that meant NO breathing at all. That is also not beneficial for a baby in utereo (or so I've heard).  

I began frantically trying to scramble toward the end of the bed to escape, but my massive child hanging off the front of my body makes it highly impossible to "scramble" anymore. Or dash. Or do anything quickly. Especially get out of bed. I began clawing at the foot of the bed, trying to use handfuls of comforter to pull my way to freedom.

Five minutes later I was still struggling like a turtle on its back, so I gave up, collapsed on the foot of the bed and cried a little about my baby swimming around in fart-laced amniotic fluid.  

It was a sad night: the night of the attack of the night farts, the night I realized my child is in constant danger that I hadn't planned for or previously worried about.

And if the baby comes out smelling like fart? The world knows who to blame (hint: NOT ME).

This Is When I Realized My Insomnia May Have Affected My Precarious Sanity

When is too much too much?

Ah, yes.  When you start pointing your camera in the general direction of your pets in pitch-black bedrooms in the middle of the night and then collapse into fits of laughter when you see how the pictures turned out.  Or maybe it was already too much when I walked into the bedroom and thought they were SOO cute that I should run downstairs, get the camera, get upstairs, realize I left the memory card in the computer, run back downstairs for the memory card, put it into the camera and run BACK upstairs, all the while hoping the animal didn't move and ruin my fun.

In my defense, Cleo was laying on the body pillow my mom sent me ....

Who WOULDN'T want a photo of that?!?

And, my sweet little MoJo poses a lot, and you can't tell me he doesn't look precious when he crosses his little paws!

(That lump under his paws is my husband's leg.)

After taking this senior picture-esque shot of the cat, I may or may not have been laughing so hard I snorted.  I told him I wanted to try to get just one more shot (Like, spoke to him.  Out loud.  Inches from my sleeping husband.) ...

... and it finally hit me when he gave me this "what is your deal, lady?" look.  I have gone over the edge.  

Even more terrifying is the fact that I realized anthropomorphizing my pets is all well and good (it's like my favorite thing ever), but when their imagined emotions lead me to major realizations ... 

Time to wake up Jeremy and force him to help me fall asleep. 

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UPDATE (2:32 AM):  So guess what?  I woke up Jeremy and told him I needed help falling asleep.  But I am still awake.  Here is what transpired: 


Veronica:  Umm, Jeremy.  Wake up.  If you love me, you will help me fall asleep.
Jeremy:  Are you serious?
V:  Dead serious.  I need to get up in a few hours so I can go to an all-day meeting, so let's get crackin'.  Put me to sleep.
J:  I can't just "put you to sleep."  You are in charge of your body.
V:  But if you loved me, you would rub my back and soothe me and sit up and wait until I fall asleep.
J:  Remember how I rubbed your back from 10:00 to 11:30?
V:  That was then.  This is now.  If you LOVED ME, you would help me more.
J:  You can't keep saying that.  
V:  But it's true.  If you loved me, you wouldn't be able to fall asleep until you knew I was safely asleep.
J:  Veronica ... I love you, but right now I don't like you very much.
V:  My mom used to say that to me a lot.
J:  Well ... [rolls over and goes back to sleep]

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UPDATE #2 (2:55 AM):  I guess I really didn't learn anything at all.


MoJo came waltzing over to me, purring, wearing his tail in his infamous "Question Mark" style, and I immediately reached for the camera.  I have NEVER been able to get a picture of that tail!  Tonight's the night!!


BAM!:

Isn't it majestic??  And yes, that IS Michael Scott who is being framed by my cat's tail.  Season 5: Prince Family Paper.

But seriously, maybe I should wake Jeremy up again.

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UPDATE #3 (8:25 AM):  I'm feeling a little guilty.  Jeremy just left for work -- 45 minutes late -- because he hit the snooze too many times.  Which MIGHT be a direct result of me waking him up constantly and crying in his face.


At about 4:30, he woke up and said very nice things to me and tried to rub my back and stay awake.  And this was while I had been plotting evil things to get him to wake up and like me enough again to help soothe me to sleep.


I think he loves me AND likes me!  At least he will until he reads this.

Sometimes I Think Baby Jesus Gave Me Insomnia So I Could Share These Products With All the Normal People of the World

I have an exciting opportunity for you.  Do you feel your derrière is flat and boring?  Do you wish it could really ... POP?  Then look no further!




If you can't stomach the whole thing, here are the highlights:


0:14 -- The first time you hear the *POP* sound
0:36 -- The most ridiculous and misleading before and after of all time
0:40 -- The secret of Booty Pop panties is revealed!
1:03 -- Booty Pop lists all the types of garments you can drape over your butt.  ALSO, awesome dancing in mirror montage
1:36 -- Camera angle accidentally reveals how lumpy one's booty will look when wearing Booty Pop
1:55 -- All five "exciting" colors are shown 


You're welcome.  Here's to hoping your booty is always popping.

An Open Letter to My Confused Brain

Dear self,

Hi. How are you? Me, I am not so fine. Here is what I did NOT like about my interaction with you over the last few days:

1. Your continued refusal to let me sleep at night
2. Specifically, the fact that over the past two weeks I have been averaging a 4:00 AM bedtime even though I have to get up and go to work a few hours later
3. The fact that you TEASED me mercilessly the other night by letting me drift off into slumber at 1:30 AM and wake up the next morning at 9:00 AM feeling refreshed. It sounds nice, but not when you follow it with:
4. Not letting me fall asleep until NINE-FREAKING-AM the following day

I really think we could have a better relationship if you just give me a little slack. I have been giving you slack on the weight thing by admitting that someone of my stature will never get back down to 120 pounds, so can't you just give me this sleep thing? Pretty please?

Just promise to think it over, okay?

Cordially,
Veronica

Insomnia Rant 2.0

GUH! Last night I only slept about two hours, not counting the last 45 minutes that were interrupted every few minutes by a cat crying in my ear and/or licking my face and a dog's tail wagging so hard and fast that it THUMPS THUMPS THUMPS the walls on either side of the bed as she runs back and forth, hoping one of us will pay attention to her. Sigh.

I was feeling good about myself too, and maybe that was the problem. Once I finally buckled down and started grading those papers (and no, I do not wish to discuss what time I actually accomplished this feat of strength), I started getting tired very rapidly. By 1:30 AM, I was thinking that when I crawled into bed, I would fall asleep in no time.

However, my brain merely cackled and said au contraire, mon ami. I alternated between laying in the dark with my eyes closed, watching TV, listening (with my eyes closed) to the soothing voice of Gene Galusha, the narrator of The New Detectives: Cases in Forensic Science (wonderful show! And the narrator's voice is like the soothing waves of the ocean. Sigh ...), and getting so thirsty that I needed to go downstairs to refill my glass of water (Seriously! What am I, five?!?).

And yes, I have tried everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. A few months ago I went off caffeine for a while ... I can't remember how long. I think I blocked the trauma from my memory. Exercise; herbs (only the legal type, I swear!); positive self-talk (I know); and even thinking about puppies, ponies, and rainbows (like my mom used to tell me to do when I was little and couldn't sleep). All to no avail.

I am not actually posting this to get advice. I just want to complain. So, thank you kindly Internet, for letting me blow off a little steam. Now I will go prop myself up and try to look awake while I teach all night! :)

Wherein I Complain About Insomnia

Well, it is about 1:30 in the AM, and I am still wide awake. Le sigh.

Last night I did not finally retire until about 5 AM ... it was BAD. Very Very Bad. And now, I am awake and looking at the clock and thinking about how I have to get up at 6:30 tomorrow morning to work from 8:30 until 8:30. Blah.

I have struggled with insomnia on and off for as long as I can remember. The worst part about it (besides the obvious "not being able to sleep and then being a terrible zombie-like person in the morning" part) is the fact that it is very erratic. I can be strolling through life all la-dee-da-dee-da, smelling roses, getting to sleep at night and waking up normal in the morning, when BAM. All of a sudden I am up until 4 AM one night, and I know the next few weeks will be long, lonely nights. I am never prepared for this weirdness, and I never know when it will creep up on me. But here it is again, and I have no idea when it will leave me.

Currently, Jeremy is sleeping beside me, flat on his back, like a dead person. Like he always is. That man only has to blink extra-long and he could be asleep. It is terrible and infuriating.

Knowing that he is asleep and enjoying the luxury of dreams and rest generally makes me unreasonably jealous once it gets past 2 AM. I look over at him and sometimes even think crazy thoughts like, if I have to be awake and miserable, then HE should be awake and miserable too. And I think about poking him. Or "accidentally" elbowing him. At times, I also have wild fantasies that maybe if I wake him up he will rub my back and soothe me to sleep and all my sleeping problems will be solved. I have tried this tact before, but it turns out it only results in a sleepy, still-awake me and a very irritated husband. So ... my husband sleeps and I type.

It is weirdly lonely this late at night (or this early in the morning, whatever.). It is not the same kind of being alone as during the day, what with the sunshine and sounds and other people being awake. And it is not like I can get anything really productive done, because if I get up to do things (which I used to do in the past. Jeremy once woke up at 4 AM because I accidentally dropped something and he wandered out of bed to find me cleaning a closet. True story.) then I am even more awake, and I know there is no hope of me drifting off to sleep when I am grading papers, cleaning grout, or folding laundry. So, I lay in bed, watch TV, read books, drink herbal sleepy-time tea, listen to CDs that play the sounds of the waves, try to hypnotize myself to sleep, and, most importantly, try NOT to think about the fact that I am still awake and should be sleeping.

Okay, if I fall asleep now, I can still get five hours of sleep before my 12-hour workday tomorrow. Here I go ...