Alarums and Excursions

The husband was unusually tired last night so he went to bed early. Really early. As in 7:30.

Of course, counting on my fingers (Math skills? What math skills?) I realized that since he has to be up at 3:30 in the morning this month, to get to work on time, 7:30 is exactly when he needs to get to bed to get a full eight hours of sleep.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love him and appreciate all he does to support our family? I've told him. Many times. Trust me.

Anyway. Getting back on topic.

The point of all this is, he was tired. Exhausted. Couldn't keep his eyes open as he stumbled toward the bedroom kind of exhausted. Switching shifts is always hard on him.

Since Michael was spending the night at a friend's house, that meant the entire family evening routine was left up to me. Which was kind of nice. I don't mind having the house to myself one little bit. I finished watching the show that was on and then decided to take the dog outside for his evening constitutional. Although it's not so much a walk as it is him running around the yard frantically lifting his leg on every blade of grass to ensure the insects are aware this is HIS! ALL HIS! And he will bark fiercely at anyone who dares intrude!

He'd bite them, but he's too small. So he barks instead.

We spent about 20 minutes outside, then he tried to run into the street so I picked him up and brought him back in. The girls had been quiet when I went outside, asleep I thought, but I heard Gabrielle crying when I opened the door.

Okay, I thought. She's still awake and Arielle has fallen asleep. Gabrielle is bored and doesn't want to fall asleep so she's crying about it. But there was something subtly wrong with her tone and it kept bothering me, so after a few minutes I decided I'd better check on her.

Just when I decided that, the sound changed, becoming clearer. Their door had been opened. Obviously Arielle was still awake. Drat. This was going to be one of those difficult nights, I could tell. The past week had been full of them. I was feeling almost as tired as the husband with all the sleep I'd missed in dealing with nightmares and various other night wakings.

I went back to their room and sure enough, I saw Arielle through the crack in the door, which she'd opened a couple of inches. I started to tell her to get back to bed as I opened the door to go in, but I stopped before the words came out.

I couldn't get the door open.

I pushed harder and felt something on the other side move. Something very heavy. What the heck?

Arielle moved away from the door and through the larger opening I could finally get a glimpse of what was going on. Something large and white was blocking the door.

Oh no! The dresser!

I was suddenly frantic to get in and check on my children. How did they ever manage to knock the dresser over? And where was the husband?

It took a lot of effort, but I finally managed to push the dresser aside. The girls were both fine, although frightened. I'm still not sure how they managed to knock the dresser over, although I have a hunch it involved either climbing or kicking. The room is so small and their beds fill so much of it that we had to get rather creative in how things were arranged. Which is why the dresser was in a position to block the door when it fell and why it would have been possible for a small person to lie on her back and kick the back of the dresser until she knocked it over.

But Gabrielle can't talk well enough to tell me what happened and Arielle was too upset to talk about it last night and this morning doesn't seem to really remember very clearly. She keeps trying to tell me about a dream she had, instead. So I'll probably never know.

And the husband? I checked on him as I was taking the girls out into the living room to snuggle with Mommy and have warm milk to help them calm down. He was still fast asleep, snoring softly. Like I said, he was exhausted. Really exhausted.