Because we had such a bad sleeper in Noah, and because we seem to have such a sensitive sleeper in Elliot, we have spent much of the last few years tiptoeing around our upstairs in the dark at night, trying not to wake either boy. You’d think that we would get accustomed to this pretty quickly. After all it’s not like we have a Byzantine maze of an upstairs. It’s pretty much just creaky wood floors with a 15-foot landing at the top of the stairs, turn right just past the attic stairs and about five feet later you’re in our bedroom.
One morning my internal GPS was a little off and I misjudged the turn into our bedroom. I didn’t just miss it by an inch or two either, and simply bang my shoulder into the wall - I literally walked into the wall next to the door. Mandy later told me it sounded like Noah had fallen out of bed. I didn’t just tiptoe into it either, I was moving fast, that’s how sure I was that I knew where I was going. I walked into it hard enough to split my eye open at my eyebrow, and proceeded to bleed all over the place. I went to the doctor that morning, and barely escaped stitches. And had to repeat that story several times at work that day. Mandy, of course, couldn‘t stop laughing.
Good blind people, we would not make. To liven up matters further, we have an iron baby gate at the top of the stairs that is permanently affixed to the wall. Being a good quality item, it let’s out a nice solid, loud “Bong!!!” whenever you forget it’s there and run into it in the dark and it bounces off the wall. It’s a hazard when it’s closed too, especially as you’re running up the stairs to put Noah back to bed at 4:30 AM and your eyes are just a little late in adjusting to the dark, and your brain a little late in remembering, “Hey, we’ve had a gate at the top of these stairs for
three years.” Even the dog has fallen victim, in his haste to get downstairs, to running headlong into the gate in the dark when we get up in the early morning.
So yesterday morning, after working out and catching up on email on the computer, I decide it’s time to get ready for work. It’s still dark out as I make my way up the stairs and the light from the computer isn‘t doing anything for my night vision. I am proceeding cautiously to avoid banging into the gate and putting my hand straight out in front of me to avoid running into any misplaced walls. At least this morning I am remembering all previous lessons. So imagine Mandy’s surprise as she sleepily walks out of our bedroom into the dark hallway to go to Elliot’s room and a stranger is
right there and grabs her around the throat with his hand. Ha Ha, you say? That’s what I said too - “hey what a coincidence we were both here at that exact same time!” - but after she got her breath and her heart rate back, Mandy was all, “Why!? Why!? Why would you do that!?”, like it was my idea of a joke and I was just waiting there for her, rather than it being pure cosmic timing. I, of course, couldn‘t stop laughing.
