Search and Rescue

I am beginning to think that I will never get a good night's sleep. Not ever. Since the babies were born, there is at least one interruption to my sleep every night. One or both of the girls will wake up crying. Most times, I jump up and lull them back to sleep and then I can go back to bed. Deal with the girls and go back to bed. That's the drill. Correction, that was the drill.

In an effort to get the most sleep possible, Blake and/or I will just put the baby or both girls in our bed when they wake up at night. Believe me, after losing way too much sleep, you will do whatever it takes just to go back to sleep. So, against our better judgement, the girls often end up sleeping in our bed. With that has come a certain amount of paranoia about the babies falling out of the bed.

The other night, I had settled back into bed after getting up with Vivian and I was so sleepy. I snuggled down into my covers and was just about asleep when I made a crucial error. I rolled onto my side to go back to sleep and that triggered Search and Rescue Blake. There I was, happily slipping back into sleep and all of the sudden, Blake (who is totally asleep), began to mumble something barely coherent about Vivian falling off of the bed and he began what was apparently an attempt to keep her from falling off of the side of Mt. Everest. Unfortunately, Vivian was in her bed and I was the lucky recipient of Blake's heroic efforts.

Imagine, laying comfortably in your bed when out of nowhere a 190 pound fully asleep man attempts a full body tackle to keep what he thinks is his sweet baby girl from imminent death. Driven but what is, I'm sure, blind fear, Blake was determined that no one would fall off of the bed on his watch. Sadly, I think hitting the floor full on my head would have been easier to deal with.

As soon as I flipped to my side, I could hear him getting fired up. This has happened at least once before, so I knew the Blake was about to Sleep Rescue me. While I appreciate the thought, well, the execution really just pissed me off. After the initial tackle, he grabbed my arm. This in effect rendered my right arm ineffective. So, I had to attempt a hook with my left but since I was on my side, the result was not as powerful as I would have liked. It was, however, enough to convince a still fully asleep Blake to reconsider his strategy. At this point, I was able to land a pretty good kick. Incidentally, this only strengthened Blake's determination to save me. He rolled to one side, ducked a punch (how did he even see that coming?) and grabbed my ankle. He was pretty irritated at my lack of gratitude for his rescue efforts so he worked my ankle pretty good.

Okay, so I was REALLY pissed at this point. I think it was about 3:45 a.m. and I had dealt with about all I could take. All I wanted was to settle in for another 2 or 3 hours of sleep before one or both of the girls woke up. Our little scuffle had devolved into a girly slap fight and I was pretty sure Blake was in for the long haul. Finally, in total frustration, I yelled something like, "Blake, I am NOT falling off of the bed and if you don't stop trying to save me from falling I'm going to punch you in the face!!!"

Blake woke up, laughed his ass off and promptly fell back asleep. I was up the for next two hours, too pissed off to sleep. I did, however, lay flat on my back for the rest of the night...