Have kids? Get a life insurance policy.....

My son is trying to kill me. I'm convinced of it. There can be no other explanation for the recent events that have taken place in the wee-hours of the morning in our otherwise peaceful household. I'll present my case and you can draw your own conclusions.

Let's start with Wednesday morning. Some of you know that I open the Y a few days a week. That being the case, I roll out of bed at 4:00am. (Well, OK......I hit snooze at 4:00am. I roll out of bed at 4:10.... but it's all the same at that hour, isn't it?) I get myself dressed, take steps to address my bedhead, and brush my teeth before I tip-toe out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. The house is still and silent, and my movements are calculated in order to make sure I don't inadvertently wake anyone up. The refrigerator door is opened slowly and silently, my breakfast is put quietly into my bag, and I wrap my keys in my fist so that they don't jingle against one another on my way out the door. On Wednesday, I stopped at the hall-tree to grab my winter jacket, because it was literally freezing outside. Twenty-three degrees to be exact. I unhooked my coat and slid my arms into it, and then bent to pick up the bag I had silently placed on the floor. As I did, a sharp and punctuated sound came out of the dark stillness above my head. It came from the upstairs balcony and it rang out like a shot. It said "MOM??!!" and I am here to tell you, I almost had a heart attack and died right there on the door mat. So after I'd gotten up off the floor, regained my composure, stopped convulsing, and checked my pants, Gibson and I had a conversation about what I was doing, where I was going, and whether or not daddy was still here. (On a side note, the way that kid worries about us leaving him forever, I'm pretty sure he was abandoned in a past life......) Eventually he determined that all was OK, and went back to bed. But me? I was WIDE awake. Who needs coffee in the morning when you can have a near-death experience instead?

Now, let's cut to last night. Gibson kind of had a rough one. I think he sometimes has nightmares -- and he sleeps like a rock, so it's hard to get him to snap out of it. I'd gone up to his room a couple of times to try to soothe him, as he was half crying and kicking around in bed. It took a few tries, but I'd finally managed to get him settled down and had gone back to bed for the 3rd time that night -- completely exhausted and just hoping I could get some uninterrupted sleep until morning reared it's ugly head. But at some point in the wee hours of the night, Gibson had woken up and wandered downstairs to our bedroom. Mike heard him coming -- which is a freakin' miracle in itself -- and was in the process of getting out of bed to see what he needed. This means that when Gibson tottered into our room, instead of quietly walking over to the bed and waking us up like he usually does, he came face-to-face with a six-foot-nine-inch figure looming over him in the dark. So he did what any normal six year old would do........ He screamed. And I don't know how you react when you go from a dead-sleep to a blood-curdling scream in your face at 3:00am, but I can tell you what I did. I shot straight up out of bed, and clung to the ceiling with my nails while I convulsed and had a mini-stroke. Oh yeah -- and I screamed too. Which, if I remember correctly, made Gibson scream again. And poor Mike, huffy because of the reaction his "help" had garnered, was all "Jesus Christ!! Would you two just SETTLE DOWN!?!" And then he steered Gibson out of the room.

So I think it's pretty clear that the kid has it out for me. He's discovered my weakness and is determined to exploit it by showing up at random moments in the dark of night and literally scaring me to death. And I don't know what he hopes to gain by knocking me off, because he's going to be sorely disappointed in the life-insurance policy.