Mom Can Rest After Late Night ‘Creak, Jingle, Slide’ at the Door

Mom on the Run

My husband’s bedside clock reads 12:49 a.m. when I roll over to look at it. My own clock is small and battery-operated and takes more effort to read in the middle of the night, so usually I check his, with the glowing orange numbers.

Great. I had been asleep for just over two hours. I like to sleep longer before my first middle-of-the-night wake-up, since getting back to sleep is always iffy. The more sleep I get before, the better. Ugh.

Finally I get up, pick my way around the German shepherd lying on the floor – good thing you’ve got a beige underbelly, Mixie, or I’d step on you every night – and go to the bathroom. The house is dark and quiet, no TV or lights, the kids must have gone to bed, so I open my bedroom door on the way back. Then I make my way back to my bed, lie down, and try to go back to sleep.

The comforter plus blanket plus sheet is too hot. I flip back the comforter. The blanket plus sheet is OK for a minute, then that’s too hot. I flip back the blanket. My pillow feels warm. I flip it over. The sheet isn’t warm enough and I get chilled, so I pull the blanket back over and move my right leg out from under.

And that’s how I am some time later, still awake, darn it all, when – creak! jingle, slide – the front door opens. “Woof!” sounds Mixie, as she springs to her feet and goes to the top of the stairs to investigate. I hear footsteps as someone moves to the door to the garage, opens it, and goes in. Thump, thump, down the stairs. Then there’s silence as the new arrival fiddles in the garage, then thump, thump, as he comes back in. Creak, goes the door, and click as it shuts.

I know it’s my son, just coming home. He’s 18, enjoying his last summer before college, and a Lipton Diet Green Tea fanatic. I know the telltale sounds of him fetching a bottle from the garage. Mixie obviously knows it’s him too, because she leaves her post, turns and comes back into the bedroom. She walks over and checks on me, touches her nose to mine.

“Yes, Mixie, thanks, good girl,” I tell her, and rub her ears before she turns and goes back to bed.

Thump, thump, thump, I hear my son walk down the hallway and into the kitchen. Now he’s too far, and beneath my room, so I can’t hear him, not specifically. But the house is quiet, so I can pick up rustlings and soft shifting noises. Then, thump, thump, thump as he makes his way back to the front of the house.

I’m listening intently, waiting, and am surprised when I hear the front doorknob rattle again. Is he going back out? Now I sit up in bed, check the clock again: 1:38 a.m. I’m OK with my son coming home late, but going back out? I’m just about to jump out of bed and run downstairs when, no, hey, nice work, son, I catch the distinctive sounds of him deadbolting the door. I hear the key clatter as he dumps it in the bowl on the top of the piano, then I lie back down as he crosses the hall and finally starts up the steps.

There’s a subtle, soft sound as Mixie stands back up and makes her way to the top of the stairs, to greet my son. “Shh, shh, good girl,” I hear him whisper. Her ID tag tinks on her collar as he pets her, then she comes back into my room as he goes to his. There’s a brief flash as he turns on his bedroom light, followed by a narrow slit around his door. A few minutes later, the flash again as he leaves his room, another flash as he turns on the bathroom light, and then there are two slits around two doors.

I check the clock one last time as my son goes back into his room: 1:52 a.m. I’ve been asleep for two hours, awake for one. My alarm goes off in three hours and 23 minutes. But now everybody is home, and my sheet and blanket and pillow feel more comfortable. Oh, wait, let me to go to the bathroom again ….