Stop freaking me out like that!

This incident occurred when we were first married, no kids, still getting used to sleeping together. We were in a new house where we managed apartments while going to school. It paid the rent and gave us $275 per month to live on. One night Shauna sat up and started pointing and the foot of the bed and shouted "Oh my gosh, there coming to get us! There they are, they're coming to get us! They're right there!" I couldn't see anything but I was envisioning the unseen world of ghosts or something coming through the time-warp opening in the wall to snatch me away.  It was even more scary because I couldn't see anything so didn't know exactly when I would feel their claws grabbing me and dragging me down to hell (picture the movie Ghost).

I was so freaked out, I jumped up, ran across the bed,  leaped to the wall where the light switch was and flipped it on.  My eyes watering from fear and my heart racing. As the light went on, Shauna's eyes got the big doe-eyed Bambi look and then she laid back down and went to sleep. Easy for her! I am still freaked out and still wondering if something was going to attack.  My heart was racing! She did this to me and now she's just going to roll over and go back to sleep? So unfair!

I slept with the light on the rest of the night. No ghosts showed.

Just humor me!

Soon after the lamp incident ( like the next night), I was once again in a blissful sleep when  I realize Shauna is under the covers, butt in the air, feet at her pillow. She is rooting around the bottom of the bed looking for something. Which is pretty amazing since it’s dark. She comes back up and starts yelling that Collin (1 month old) is in my pillow.  She orders me to hand over my pillow so she can save Collin. I think through this carefully and quickly calculate the likelihood of this happening is very slim. So I tell her she is sleeping and to lay back down and go to sleep (I haven't learned yet that this approach never works).  She gives me the angry look again and yells “Just humor me, OK!”  I hand her my pillow, she digs around in the pillow case and then finally begins to wake up. As usual, she goes back to sleep while I lay there for another hour pondering the whole incident.  “This is only our first year of marriage” I think to myself. “What are the next 20 years going to be like?”  A total riot, that's what!

It's not a boy, it's a lamp

When Shauna and I had our first child, we lived in Provo while attending BYU. As you know, with a new baby a mother doesn't get much sleep and it is lack of sleep that enahances Shauna's nocturnal activities. One night I was awakened by a slight rocking of the bed. I couldn't figure out what it was so I rolled over to see Shauna sitting up on the edge of the bed, cradling our nightstand lamp as if it were a baby. The lamp shade bumping her forhead with each gentle rock of the lamp. I said her name a couple of times to wake her, but it didn't work. To get her attention, I decided to reach over and flick on the lamp. Lighting up her face, her eyes went big, she set the lamp down and went back to sleep. I reached over, turned out the lamp and patted our apparent second child good night.

Hide 12:16

This one isn’t new but it is one of the longer “I’m awake, but not really” moments. Shauna and I are both in bed asleep when all of a sudden she jumps out of bed and yells “Oh my gosh, it’s a hide 12:16!  Daren, they just said there’s a hide 12:16, we have to get to the basement!”

Now remember, I’m fast asleep so as I’m coming to my senses I’m trying to figure out what the heck a hide 12:16 is. I don’t recall ever hearing of an emergency announcement called hide 12:16? As a look around, watching Shauna run to get her robe out of the closet, I see the clock with red lighted numbers showing 12:16am. It’s then I realize, yep, another night time antic. Annoyed, I tell Shauna she’s just dreaming and to get back in bed. She comes to my side of the bed, bends down so her face is level with mine as says in a devilish voice “I am NOT waiting for you!”

As I watch her turn and run out of the bedroom, I yell “don’t wake the kids!” and then I count down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…when she then comes walking back into the bedroom and says “don’t you say anything.” And we both go back to sleep.

Its the dog

Last week Shauna went to bed early. Maddi and I were still up so when we came into the bedroom Shauna was already asleep. Right on cue she starts talking about work and asks if Maddi and I could get the file for her that she needed for Monday. Maddi and I start snickering which wakes her a bit and then she yells "It's not me, it's the dog!"  Huh? Maddi and I start busting a gut! Somehow she had transitioned from work to us accusing her of passing gas. Naturally that would be the dog.

It Starts...

My wife talks in her sleep. Actually, she talks, walks and works in her sleep. After 24 years I have decided to keep track of her antics. Some are hilarious. Some just make you go hmmmm?

It all started when we were dating in 1987. Shauna and I were watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in the middle of the day. She fell asleep on the couch sometime near the end of the movie. As I sat on the couch with her and continued to watch the movie, she all of a sudden jumps up with a face full of terror and starts yelling "they're in your mouth! they're in your mouth!" It scared the heck out of me and I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. I didn't really appreciate her trying to stick her hands in my mouth. Then, I looked back at the movie and remembered the scene where all these bugs came out of this guys mouth. She must have been dreaming about it.

And for me, this is where it all started. As time went on, we got married and had kids.  I experienced lamps being rocked to sleep, children being saved from inside a pillow case to the now infamous "Hide 12:16" emergency. I'll post that one later. I even received a call when I was out of town where she asked me if we were taking delivery of the sports jerseys that were in the delivery truck that she was sure was in front of the house...at 2am.

Stay tuned for more night time antics. I promise, it will be funny!