I love animals and I need sleep.

For growing up in a suburb in San Diego, I was raised around a lot of animals. We had rabbits and cats/kittens, dogs/puppies, birds, a couple of ducks, an owl, a tarantula and a turkey. Even at over two feet tall, the turkey thought one of the ducks was his mom. Our beloved turkey met his fate of leaving our family after a neighbor walked into her kitchen to find him standing in the middle of it. A few weeks after giving the turkey away to a shelter, my mom asked them if the family that took him in were enjoying him, they responded by saying they thought our family pet was delicious. It was then my mom realized the poor guy was given away near Thanksgiving.

I always wanted to be a Veterinarian. I was always the mid-wife to our dogs and cats during labor and delivery and I always got the pick of the litter, almost always naming the pup or kitchen “Precious”. Yes, this was before watching Silence of the Lambs. I once saved a possum that was attacked by my three dogs. I walked up to the puncture-riddled, lifeless body to assess the damage and the damn thing freaked the hell out of me when it turned it’s face to mine and started hissing like a witch that just got it’s nose cut off. I figured I should probably do the thing a favor. Despite the puncture wounds, it was still ugly. So, I got a bucket and filled it with water. To drown it. I paced back and forth for quite a while until I finally realized I didn’t have it in me to kill a poor innocent creature, even if I thought I was helping it. So, I grabbed a pink towel from the house, wrapped the possum in it and loaded it into the trunk of my 1980 Ford Mustang. I had no plan, other than ditching it somewhere. Up the street from my house there was a nice shady spot under a tree so I pulled over and got the thing out and placed it, ever so gingerly, in the shade. I can imagine the confusion and alarm the neighbor across the street was thinking as he walked down his driveway toward me as I walked away from the bundle in a pink towel. After I explained the situation, he kind of smiled, in that, my-god-you’re-freaking-crazy kind of way and told me he’d take care of it. The next day, I drove by the spot and the towel was there but the possum was gone. Now, I imagine the thing healed and ran off into a field of pansies to start a hideous beautiful family and live happily ever after. But I still wonder if that neighborman had him some possum stew for dinner and left the towel in hopes that I would be steered in the direction of false jubilation. Although I don’t really care what happened to that possum, I do love animals, especially the domesticated kind.

I’ve been sick lately. I can’t tell if it’s season-change allergies or a cold but going to bed at midnight and waking up at 630am just wasn’t working last night as I sneezed every minute and blew my nose every two. My wonderful hubby agreed to waking up with our son at 630am this morning and getting him ready and off to school so that I could sleep in. Currently, my parents live with us as they find a job and home after moving here in July, so our baby is sleeping in her crib in our room. When going to bed at 130am, I couldn’t stop reading blogs (!), I laughed at the irony that would most likely take place of my baby waking up at 645am and not letting me sleep. Sure enough, she woke up… at 645am. Having been up since 620am, I was ready to get my congested head back to sleep. I grabbed my body pillow, went into my son’s room and climbed onto his bunk bed. At this point, the floor was a perfect option as well. Anything to get me back to sleep before my body and mind realized what was happening and woke up completely, preventing me from sleeping again for the rest of the day. Finally settling in and drifting off to sleep, the soft cotton t-shirt sheets and pillow case lulling me to dreamland, I smiled as I realized the desire I’ve had (for months) to sleep in was finally becoming a reality. All of that came to a crashing halt as I snapped to alert-status and my blood pressure rose to the yipping sound of some pesky neighbor dog that decided now was the best opportunity to show some neighborhood squirrel that he had the mouth of a sailor. POS. I left my earplugs in my room. So I tried to start my dream process while I was still awake, maybe incorporate this pesky fool into my dream somehow? It just didn’t work. Every time the dog yipped (it couldn’t even qualify as a bark) my brain became a bowl of Jell-O stuck in a Japanese earthquake.

Then it hit me. As much as I love animals, I love sleep so much more and if I was within range of that mutt, he probably would have been given a swift kick in the chops. If I had a gun, I might have made that animal my target. If I had some cyanide, I would have flavored it’s food with it. Did this mutt not know that I am a busy mom to three kids, I never get enough sleep AND I am fighting a war with some head gunk AND my husband is finally able to help with getting the kids off to school so I could FINALLY GET SOME REST?! UGH!

Remembering my experience with the possum, I thought it much easier (and so much less painful) if I just moved back into my room. So, I did just that. Thanked God that I didn’t own a dog at the moment. Thanked God that I couldn’t hear the dog from my room and thanked God (yet again) that my baby daughter sings sweet lullabies to herself when she wakes up in the morning.

Ahhh, sweet, sweet sleep here I come.