Is it a full moon? Is Mercury in retrograde? Has Earth changed the direction of its orbit around the sun? Because either I’m getting really freaking paranoid, or the inmates are upping their mental game in trying to kill me.

Dear Husband just left for a week out of town, so it’s just me. That’s nothing unusual in our household, but the inmates seem to always choose these times to pull out all the stops on their insanity.

Last night at 10:30 I was getting ready to go to bed early for once, when suddenly Young Son started screaming bloody murder with more terror than I’ve ever heard come out of his little body. I sprinted upstairs, turned on the light and found him hiding under the covers. “WHAT???!! WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!? ARE YOU BEING MURDERED?!?”

“I heard squeaking!!! There is a mouse in my bed!!!”

*sigh*

Okay. So let me fill you in a bit. Back in January (during yet another time when DH was out of town for three weeks), we had a mouse in our house. Like I said, all this shit happens when he’s not home. I was able to get rid of it, our pest control company had done their thing and everything’s been fine. Unfortunately ever since then, YS has been fearful that the mouse is in his room at night — like regularly yells for us after he’s gone to bed, claiming he’s seen a mouse in the dark. One time it was a dirty sock in the corner, another time it was his arm brushing up against his stuffed animal. While I feel for the kid — I mean I wasn’t exactly calm about the whole matter either — this freaking out every other night is getting really old.

[Deep breaths] “Young Son. There is NOT a mouse in your room. Dad and I have checked every night for you, the pest control guys have checked. There’s NO MOUSE!”

He crawled around on the floor and looked at all baseboards for mouse holes. “But I heard SQUEAKING, Mom!” (He thinks he’s going to see evidence of mice by finding a hole in a baseboard just like in the cartoons.)

“Dude. If there were any mice upstairs, they’d all be partying it up in First Born’s room with all of junk and snacks he’s got stashed in there. Your room is totally boring to a mouse. THERE’S NO MOUSE!”

I made him go to the bathroom to pee and get a drink of water to reset him, tucked him back in and turned the lights out. I stumbled back to my bedroom and collapsed on the bed. So much for an early bedtime. It was going to be awhile before my adrenaline dropped below toxic levels.

I’d finally fallen into a deep blissful sleep by 2:00 AM, only to be awoken by God knows what. Was it a sound? Did my mom-dar get set off by something? I didn’t know, but I just knew something was up. I listened for awhile and kept thinking I was hearing…something. I finally got up to investigate, because I had a sneaking suspicion that First Born was up to no good. I tiptoed down the hall and threw open his door. It was dark in his room, but I had seen the tell-tale light of his tablet screen quickly being extinguished. There was some quick rustling and then silence.

“First Born! What are you doing?!?! I know you are awake!” I reached down and found his tablet still warm with his ear buds dangling from it. ARRRGGGG! In our house we have a strict rule that all electronics are turned into Mom and Dad at bedtime. Any use of electronics after lights-out has clear, major consequences. Yet somehow FB couldn’t resist the temptation and had managed to steal it off of my nightstand where I had kept it.

“What were you thinking?!? It’s two o’clock in the stupid morning! You have a major test tomorrow!!” They are doing their yearly statewide standardized testing at his school this week, and we always try to be sure he gets a good night’s sleep and a decent breakfast especially during those weeks. The next morning was going to be super fun.

“I don’t know. Sorry Mom,” he sullenly muttered as he crawled under the covers.

“You’re in some serious trouble, pal. GO. TO. SLEEP!” as I flounced out of his room in a rage with his tablet clenched in my hand. I returned to my room and started searching on my phone for safes with fingerprint, retinal and voice recognition security. This sneaking electronics crap was getting out of hand.

Three hours later I finally fell back into a fitful sleep only to be woken up at 6:00 by Young Son yelling again, “Mom! MOM!! MOOOOMMMMM!!!!”

I went running in, flipped on the light, “WHAT?!? What’s wrong?!?”

He looked at me from his bed with big eyes, “Uhh…uhhh…I just wanted to say good morning. Sorry.” I guess must have looked particularly crazed and scary.

“You. wanted. to. say. good. morning,” I tried to say as calmly as possible. “Good. Morning….Oh. And happy birthday, by the way. Go back to sleep.”

I gave up and went downstairs to make coffee and make his special birthday breakfast muffins. Awhile later, I went upstairs to roust First Born. I opened his door and said loudly, “GOOD MORNING! You need to get up. I better not have to come up here again.”

His eyes flew open and he stuttered, “Okay….okay…good morning…just a second…” as he tried to get his bearings.

Ha! Success! I had him scared! Normally I get a surly response in the morning when I go in, but this morning he was much more subdued. Damn straight you better be scared, kid! Luckily he knew better than to poke the bear this morning, and we actually had a calm breakfast together.

Then YS declared, “Mom! I know what the squeaking sound I heard was! It was a booger in my nose squeaking when I was breathing!”

Hallelujiah. Mystery solved.

After the kids were off to school, I went back inside to savor some quiet and coffee and to try to get motivated to accomplish some things. Alas, it was not meant to be today. Instead I took a nap, drank more coffee, thought about doing things, played outside with Warrior Princess and then wrote this post. So at least I’ve got that going for me.

Now I’m getting ready to get some birthday dinner for Young Son and his fellow inmates. Screw cooking tonight. I hope he picks a place that has alcohol on the menu. Cheers to a good night’s sleep tonight.

Happy Birthday, Young Son. You may be batshit crazy, but I’ll always adore you with every fiber of my being.

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