Somnambulant Pit Falls

At some point, early in my life I developed a very bad habit. One that I seem to have passed on to at least one of my children. Unfortunately, that same child has been the victim of my bad habit. You see, I'm a sleepwalker. It's kind of a nuisance. Let's start at the beginning.

When I was young, like really young, I had night terrors. My Mother and Daddy would come into my room in the middle of the night, drawn by my screams, actually they were more like shrieks. They would shake me awake, or so they thought. I never remembered a thing in the morning. But, before my Mother could ask what the dream was, Daddy would say "OK, now go back to sleep", and I did. This started happening when I was about 2 or 3 years old. I still have nightmares, but, we'll get to that later. When I was about 4 the terrors escalated to somnambulance. That's right. The sleepwalking began. It started with just walking around the house, or into my Grandparents bedroom, standing there staring at my Grandpa. It creeped him out a little bit! You can probably imagine that. When I was 5, I went to the neighbor's house, sound asleep. The neighbor opened the door when I knocked at 3a.m., confused because of the time and that no one was there. I was. I was just so small that he didn't see me in the dark. I slipped right passed him and crawled in bed with his daughter, who was my best friend. They found me the next morning and pieced it all together. Of course, I had no memory of it. That was the first sign that this may become a serious problem! And it did.

I've woken up on my neighbors porch, about to knock, with no idea how I got there. Not cool.  A friend and I lived together, as teenagers, in a travel trailer behind her mom's place. We were attached to our horse pasture and right on a busy road. More than once I woke up in the morning with mud on my feet and in my bed. My friend (more like my sister) assumed I was getting up to go into her mom's house to use the restroom. When she realized that I was sleepwalking she decided to follow me. She was afraid I would walk into that busy road. I was kind of afraid of that too. So, one night I get up, obviously still asleep, and Tammy follows. I didn't go into the road, nor did I go into her mom's house. Instead, I went into the horse pasture. Well, that explained the mud! I was walking over to my favorite horse, Buckshot, and leaning against him. He would turn his neck so that he was basically holding me up with his head. We would both sleep like that, standing in the pasture. It's kind of sweet actually. I wouldn't move until he shuddered or shook, and spurred me into mobility. Then I'd walk back to our trailer and crawl back into bed, still sound asleep, muddy feet and all. Mystery solved!

As an adult it got worse. Especially after my son was born. Maybe it was the meds, I don't know. See, my son was my only C-section, and I was heavily medicated, since I was an experiment for my doctor. He took my staples out after 21 hours and released me from the hospital after 24. That's a blog in and of itself. But, since he sent me home essentially TAPED shut, he was kind enough to dope me to the gills. Maybe that wasn't such a good thing. The first one that I remember was the computer chair. See, I remember my sleepwalking, now that I'm older. It's like a dream, but I know it has to be real. It just feels different. So the chair. I went into my Mother's office and tried to turn on the computer. Only in my sleep, I failed miserably. I was hitting the power button on the monitor, and just couldn't figure out why it wouldn't come on. So I get the bright idea "If I water it, it'll grow. Then it'll come on!" yeeeeaaahhhhhh......  I go get a glass of water, take it back to the office and pour it over the seat of the chair. Thank God it was just the chair. I realize it's dribbled onto the carpet, so I go get a towel and sop it up. All of this while sound asleep! The next morning my Mother finds towels in the floor around the wet chair and has NO trouble piecing it together. She mentioned it as soon as I woke up, to which I promptly facepalmed. I had really hoped it was I dream only. Dang-it. And THAT, my friends, is NOTHING compared to the next tale!

Because of my son's medical issues, he slept in his carrier with about a ton of receiving blankets folded under him for padding. This way I could keep him elevated into an almost sitting position for his breathing. I slept on the couch, next to him, with my hand on him. Kay'so, one morning, I tell my mother that I have a creeping suspicion the I might have tried to turn my baby into a hot dog. I vaguely remembered gently pulling the third blanket down out from under my son, taking it into the kitchen, partially unfolding it, squirting mustard on it, refolding it and gently replacing it. Yes, mustard. About 2 that afternoon my Mother could stand it no longer. We hadn't looked. I couldn't. I just couldn't bring myself to know the truth. Yup, it was there alright. *Facepalm X10000* Don't get your hopes up. It didn't end there.

During a nap one afternoon, I sat up and asked my Mother "Why do all dreams have to be in toilet seats?...What the hell did I just say?" I had woke mid sentence. About a week after that, and the mustard incident, I was sleeping in my daughters bedroom. My youngest girl was crying, but I was sleeping too hard to hear her. My Step Dad, spurred into motion by the crying, came to the bedroom doorway and threw a flashlight at me. When I sat up he said "I thought you needed to see what you were doing." I said OK, and got up. Neither of us was awake! I picked up one of Erika's shoes and headed for the kitchen, walking past my Step Dad, who was still standing in the doorway, sleeping. I opened the refrigerator, took out the milk, got about an inch away from pouring and woke up. "OH, HELL NO!" I said, put the milk back and headed back to the bedroom to get my crying child. The Step Dad had woken at some point, and as we past each other in the hall he shot me the most awful look and said "Not a word." The next morning my Mother took full advantage of the situation. We were so embarrassed.  

Now it's my son's turn. As he got older, he started sleepwalking, too. He just added a twist. He's a sleep eater! The pantry has a slide latch up high because of his sleep eating. It didn't matter what it was, raw spaghetti, bread, cracker, you name it, as long as he could open it with his hands. And he wasn't neat about it, either. One night, when he was about 8, I caught him walking into the kitchen, obviously asleep. I grabbed him carefully by the shoulders and asked him what he was doing. "I want more." he said. "More what?" I asked. More sleep?" He nodded yes, so I walked him back to his bed, quietly chuckling. He's nearly 16 now, and the walking has slowed dramatically. Thank God for that.  

He's tall enough to reach the latch.