Sunday, March 6, 2011

Love in the Time of Night Terrors.

There are a lot of reasons that I love Jeff. I think if you peruse our blog to a time pre-baby, you'll see that basically all I blogged about was how great Jeff is. Just to prove that I can talk about something other than Adam (and because I also love Jeff), I'd like to tell you about one of the reasons I love Jeff.

I have a problem with waking up and being confused. I guess you could call my wakings "quasi-night terrors." I know that's pretty vague, but it's the best I can do. It's happened to me for as long as I can remember. I usually am not aware of what is going on, but I am often able to remember that something strange happened the next day. Very very rarely I can remember the entire incident. Since I fall asleep long before Jeff does, he often witnesses my outbursts and can corroborate my memory.

This summer, my night terrors were always focused around Adam. I'd wake up at least 3 or 4 times a week and start clawing at my pillow, because I was convinced that Adam was stuck there and couldn't breathe. As Adam got older (and started biting me) I stopped having the pillow night terror.

Lately, I've been going back to my most reoccurring night terror- that there's an earthquake. Oddly, this night terror is a pretty calm one. I usually wake up and tell Jeff, "Oh! There's an earthquake!" I say this the same way as I might say "Oh! The DOW dropped a little!" or "Oh! The Steelers won!" (I would never say either of these things, due to boringness.) Anyway, I am always mildly distressed as I tell Jeff about the earthquake.

This is one of the reasons why I love Jeff Carr.

He never makes fun of me when I say ridiculous things in my sleep. He's always very nice about it. For example, when I had my latest earthquake outburst, he didn't tell me to go back to sleep or that I was wrong. He said, "Oh! Really? Are you sure?" And he didn't say those words with a trace of sarcasm; he said them like he was open to the possibility that there might actually be an earthquake that only I could feel. Obviously, this has happened many times before, but he never makes me feel embarrassed about my night terrors. Whenever I would have the Adam-suffocating night terror, he would always hold me and comfort me, even after I realized Adam was fine and that I acted like a crazy woman. I really feel like I could wake up and tell Jeff that I was secretly the Queen of Narnia every night for ten years and he still would gently act surprised and impressed. I know it's a silly thing, but it means a lot to me that I have a spouse that cares about my feelings, even when I probably won't remember or care.

And on the times that I wake up and can remember what happened, I smile, because Jeff loves me too.

2 comments:

Homeschool Mamma said...

Way to go, Jeff! It is awesome to be loved that completely -- I am grateful that Ryan never makes me feel silly about the fact that I'm a terrible front-seat driver, and often grab on to the arm bar when we come to a stop sign, as if he might not stop, or we're gearing up for a major crash. Awesome men = awesomely happy wives. :)

Charlote said...

I think that is so sweet that Jeff is there to comfort you when you have your night terrors. I also had reoccurring night terrors that would keep me awake at night after they happened. One thing that helped me overcome these night terrors was http://onlineceucredit.com/edu/social-work-ceus-sd which offers advice about various kinds of sleep disorders. I think it would be very helpful to check out.