Confessions of a Scaredycat

I have tried for years to put on a brave face but those who know me really well know that I am terrified of being alone at night. Ive been like this for as long as I can remember . Please no words of comfort like, "Fear can keep you up all night, but Faith makes one nice pillow..." Ive heard them all and its not God I'm afraid of at night its men and what they do with their agency because lets be honest, sometimes bad things happen to good people...Plus just in case some of my sarcasm doesn't come across in type, while this is a real problem, I'm poking fun at myself here...

The first thing I can remember that might have started this "problem" is when I was about 6 and at my friend Penny's house, who had older brothers. They were watching Friday the 13th and we were playing dolls in the corner. I wish my Mom had been there to tell me to look away you REALLY don't want to watch this but I was 6 and not very smart at the time and well it was.....terrifying but I couldn't look away!

The second thing I can come up with was a playground rumor that the Night stalker (serial killer in so cal in the 80's) had struck in my neighborhood. I'm not sure if this is really true but it really stuck with me. I'm sure my parents thinking they were helping me as a child told me he never went into houses where the door or windows were not already open. Since ours were always locked I had nothing to worry about right? At least I know where my fear of sleeping with a window open comes from, much to Johns dismay, and let me tell you if I even suspect a door has been not locked I have to check. Sometimes, twice.

Then we moved out to Brea where we lived by the foothills. See in my mind I thought, shoot there is only one house between ours and the hills, would they stop at our neighbors or come to the bigger house next door? It didn't help that I have one very vivid memory of a helicopter with a searchlight looking at those hills by our house one night.

Then there was the coyotes that hunt at night and no matter what we did (music, my mom singing to me) you just cant block out that sound of barking and yipping...oh yeah and one of my friends went into a very vivid description of how coyotes hunted so with my imagination I could see the hunt in my mind...oh and I lost quite a few cats to those coyotes too.

Then there was the time I started to walk back from my friend Joni's house (if I remember right Mark was here with me on this one so it just wasn't me) and her older sister and boyfriend were parked across the street, doing whatever in the dark so I couldn't see who it was. They saw sweet innocent little me and he decided to say, "Hey little girl want a piece of candy." In a deep scary voice. I did exactly what I had been told. I went right back into my friends house and called 911...on her sisters boyfriend.

So somewhere around 14 or 15 I stopped babysitting, most people thought it was my busy social calendar but actually I was just to scared to do it anymore!

Why do I tell you all of this, just to help explain that all of this explains my insomnia through the years. Its like I think I have to be my very own ADT. No burglar is going to catch me sleeping innocently! When I went away to college I moved into the 3rd floor of a building of like 300 girls and I was in the middle room on our floor...its the best year of sleeping Ive EVER had!

NOW for the REAL point of why I told you all this....Normally I don't wake up when John goes to work early but now that I'm pregnant and peeing every 2 hours I wake up a lot. So I told him no more leaving before 6 because I just cant take it right now. Due to NO fault of his own, his boss said they weren't going for a bid and then changed his mind yesterday, and the bid had to be delivered around 8:30 so he had to leave for work at 3:30. This is still a time when I wont sleep if I'm alone.

Instead of staying in bed I just get up and work on some things. Unfortunately Caleb also woke up so I told him to go crawl in our bed and I would be there soon, thinking he would go back to sleep on his own. No luck so I bravely decided today is the day, I WILL go back to sleep too.... On my way in I check on Davis and come out and there is the biggest blackest weird bug on our wall, like a mixture between a beetle, spider, and cricket. Well, I know I wont sleep with that crawling around. So in my tired 4 in the morning mind I get out the fly swatter to kill this thing. Direct HIT! Where the heck did it go!!?! I couldn't find the stupid bug anywhere. I knew there was no chance if I didn't find this thing for me to go to sleep, so I keep searching. All of a sudden I feel a crunch under my heel! I scream and wipe my foot on a towel...still no bug. I know I stepped on it but its disappeared again, but seriously I was not worried at this point because what bug could survive under the heel of a woman 6 months pregnant!

I climb confidently into bed with Caleb (leaving a few lights on for extra security) and about a minute later the coyotes in our neighborhood decide to go in for a kill! Honestly! I have heard them only once since we moved in WHY does it have to be this morning!

Caleb is scared and he cuddles up to me and says, Mommy I'm so scared. I in my very strong Mommy voice tell him there is nothing to worry about and NO reason to be scared....He falls asleep kicking me and swinging his arms all over while Beckham kicks me and swings his arms all over inside and I stay awake, their very own ADT alarm and don't fall asleep until somewhere around 6:30...which is when Davis decided to get up this morning!