When I last left my story of Ian's overnight visit, I was signing off so that I could start a pillow. I actually read that line aloud to him as I was typing, so he was standing on my bed, armed and ready when I pushed the "Publish" button. We battered each other from one end of the condo to the other. Ian learned - I think - a very important strategy for fighting with pillows. It is very helpful to hold the pillow from the open end and hit with the closed. He was holding the case on the wrong side and his pillow came flying out during that particular skirmish. I must have hit him 10 times before we paused to re-stuff his pillow into his case.
He had announced earlier in the evening that his normal bed time was 9:15 pm, but because he was staying here, he was going to stay up until 10:15. (His decision. I would have let him stay up as long as he liked.) He was planning to get up at 6:15 the next morning so that he could get dressed and brush his teeth before Zoboomafoo(heck if I know if the spelling is correct) came on PBS. And so I helped him make his bed,
he got changed into night clothes, the dogs visited him in bed,
and we cuddled and talked a little while before he fell asleep.
No problem. Or so I thought.
I have a hard time falling asleep. My first mistake was somewhere around midnight. Ian appeared to be out cold, so I crawled into my own bed and softly turned on my 13" tv to fall asleep by. Ian sat bolt upright. "No TV" he announced. Grumpily. OK. But the damage was done. He started crying and talking about how he hadn't slept at all since he got here and how he was not going to sleep the rest of the night. I asked if he wanted to cuddle again... "Yes" he said.
He fell asleep and I was just falling asleep when he woke up again. Around 1am. Crying again about how he was never going to fall asleep and that the room was too hot (I turned down the heat at his request) and how the ceiling fan was not on high enough (I turned it up to the highest speed), but things were still not good. His air mattress was not like his bed at home. So I invited him up into my bed to sleep. He accepted. And so there were three of us in the bed. Me. My regular bedmate Cosmos. And Ian. We cuddled again for a little while, and Ian fell asleep. I eventually did to.
Around 4 am, I awoke. Between Ian and Cosmos, I had been compressed into a spot on my mattress about the size of a frisbee. I was still stiff from bowling the night before and now was in some significant pain. So I quietly got out of bed and padded into the kitchen, there to consume a few advil. And came back to bed again.
Ian was wide awake. Complaining about how he hadn't slept the whole night. Kicking me and tossing. Crying a little. Then, singing to Cosmos. Christmas Carols with a few Hanukah songs thrown in for good measure. And not just singing to him. He lifted Cosmos's ear flap up and was crooning directly into the poor dog's ear canal. Not exactly what Cozie was hoping for at that time of night. If you could have seen the look that dog gave me...
Ian was wide awake. Decided that he needed to go to the bathroom. Closed the door. And I remembered that I had planted the Fart Machine in back of the toilet the prior evening. Pushed the button and set it off. But instead of getting Ian to laugh, he just got mad. Came back into the bedroom and fell over Sunny who was sleeping in the aisle by the bedroom door. Sunny screamed, Ian protested and then cried. Climbed back into bed. And so it was three bumps on a log (or mattress) again.
Around 5:30 am or so, Ian decided to get out of bed and go watch TV in the other room. Fine with me. He disappeared... now it was just Me and Cosmos. I tried to sleep, but Ian appeared at my bedside again, complaining that the TV was just a blank screen. I got up and discovered that the cable box had been turned off, fixed it, and went back to bed. At 6am he showed up again. Apparently his 5:30 am show was over. He didn't like the 6 o'clock programming, so he came to see what I was doing. (Sleeping, or trying to.) Announced that if it was 6 PM instead of am, PBS would be broadcasting BBC World News. Went over to sing into Cosmos's ear again. And in my sleep-deprived haze, I heard him making some kind of deal with Cosmos. I'm not sure quite what the deal was and I asked him. "None of your business, Aunt Laura" he retorted. Whatever. It was a deal with a dog. A very tired dog. One who had been sung to directly into his ear canal for the better part of 12 hours.
Ian left the room again, and I thought that I was going to get a few minutes to myself. But no... at 6:15, the alarm went off, just as we had programmed it the evening before. Ian came back to investigate. I lay there like I was dying. I was.
Once Ian was satisfied, he disappeared again. I was too tired to see what he was up to. And as it turns out, he was getting dressed and brushing his teeth as he has promised. He came back to me at 6:30 to let me know that he was now turning on the TV again. Zoboomafoo (or whatever it was) was on.
I got about 40 minutes of sleep while Ian watched his show before he came back to me to let me know he was bored. It was time to feed the dogs and then get breakfast. And so I gave up and got up.
We walked to Mort's Deli down near Ventura Blvd.
Ian had only walked to breakfast once in his life before this (while on vacation in San Diego... to Denny's) and was very concerned whether or not Mort's had pancakes. I told him that I was pretty sure that they did, but if not, we would continue on to Carrow's where I knew for sure they were served.
We walked under a freeway overpass... Ian liked it.
Actually, I kind of like to walk under them too. Lots of echos. And then walked another couple of blocks until we arrived at the restaurant. Yes, they did have pancakes, so we took a seat and Ian ordered the short stack.
I asked him how he liked them. "They're just like Denny's except warmer" he replied.
We stopped at the market to buy some parsley and then at the vaccum store to get a new belt on the way back home.
Arrived about 15 minutes before Mommy and Daddy showed up. Ian was in fine form. I was dying.
When Mommy and Daddy arrived, they asked Ian how he was feeling. "I feel great." he said. "I got a full eight hours sleep." (I filled them in.)
They finally left, just after Eric arrived and after Ian pulled the Fart-Machine-in-the-bathroom trick on both Daddy and Eric (from where the fart machine came). Somehow, when it wasn't funny the night before, it had now - with the remote control in Ian's hands - become hysterical.
Despite Ian's proclimation of eight-hours-sleep, I have it from a very good source (Mommy) that it wasn't just me. Ian was very tired too. He fell asleep on the way home.
And has slept a good part of the day away.
Not me. I had things to do and places to go. And we'll be off to the Music Center in just a little while. Between me and Ian, I have a feeling that this evening, one of us will be in fine form. And one of us will be very tired.
1 comment:
Hope you find some rest on your things to do and you were able to enjoy tonights events. Enjoy your chinese food tomorrow..
Hugs,
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