Wednesday, October 31, 2007

I wrote this post in my head at 5:17 a.m. this morning…

Charlie woke up crying again early this morning. He has been doing this almost daily for the past few weeks. He wakes up in the dark wee hours of the morning, cries for about 15 minutes until one of us decides to crawl out of bed and retrieve him. We bring him back in the bed with us in hopes that he will please, please, please go back to sleep. Sometimes he does, but most often, he just tosses, turns, grunts, and flops with accidental head-butting and kicking. A few days ago, the Professor and I made a pact that we would weed out this habit of our child. We decided that we would NOT put him in the bed with us anymore and just let him cry. After a few mornings of early morning crying, he would be cured, and all will be well with the Palmer world of sleeping.

For the first few mornings, things went well. He cried, but only for 15-20 minutes. And the crying was mild enough that he didn’t put himself into an inconsolable fit. So, relief washed over the house and the grumpies were moving their way out. We were sleeping through the night (and morning) again!

This morning, I woke to the sounds of Charlie crying again. I looked at the clock. It was 5:17. I was exhausted from my late night of watching reruns of Frasier Halloween episodes. I was totally prepared to ignore the cries and let Charlie lull himself back to sleep, but something was totally off. Something just felt COMPLETELY wrong. Once I was able to pull myself a little further out of my deep sleep, I realized that I was completely burning up. I was sweating profusely, I had kicked off the covers, and everything felt so incredibly hot. I have been feeling a cold coming on for the past few days, so I immediately thought that I was dying from some horrible fever that I picked up at day care.

I sat up and took a look around. I noticed that the Professor had kicked off the covers on his side of the bed, too. I even noticed the dogs panting a little. That’s when it hit me. I heard the heat blowing through the vents and could physically feel the dry heat sucking the moisture out of my skin. I got up to check the thermostat, which read 85 DEGREES.

“So, is your thermostat broken?” you make ask. No. Nope. Sure isn’t. Last night before bed, the Professor complained of being cold. He wanted to turn on the heat. I, of course, voiced that I didn’t think turning on the heat was necessary, what with the flannel sheets on our bed and the fact that the temperatures were in the 50s and all. But he insisted. He convinced me that Charlie may kick off his blanket and get cold in the night. Boy, was I duped. Instead, Charlie was woken by the sheer torture of the blazing heat this morning.

So, I got up, got Charlie, opened a few windows, got back into bed with the covers officially kicked off for the duration of the morning, and wrote this post in my head. Charlie, of course, head-butted me in the process of trying to flip over backwards in an effort to get comfortable.

[After a confrontation about the heat later this morning, the Professor informed me that he simply forgot to check the temperature before turning on the heat. Go figure.]

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