I've heard that "money is the root of all evil," but when you are lying awake on your bed completely unaware of the time, listening to the soft hum of the ceiling fan above and drenched in sweat at 3:30 - no wait 5:30 a.m. - I would have to say that insomnia is the root of all evil.
What is a person to do in the wee hours of the morning? Well let's start off by thinking about every single little thing that could go wrong in the middle of the night if I were to fall asleep! At first I reassured myself that my insomnia was a result of being a new mom. Then my sister told me she has had obsessive compulsive fits where she constantly checked the back door of our house to make sure it was locked. That's reassuring.
Since this past week has been unfavorably humid, I installed an air conditioner in Emma's room, which is adjacent to my room in the upstairs of my Mom's house. In order to plug in the AC unit, my Mom insisted I use a thick, bulky orange extension cord rather than your regular old extension cord. I'm guessing the amount of current the AC unit required posed a potential fire hazard with the regular old extension cord.
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Tara Maguire
Here is where the insomnia kicked in.
The outlet - where I needed to plug in the orange extension cord - is along a wall underneath Emma's crib. The underneath of her crib houses a ton of unused baby items, such as clothes, blankets and quilts. What is the first thing that comes to mind? Huge safety hazard!
As it turns out, the bulky orange extension cord that my Mom instructed me to use is getting rather warm, warm enough that if I leave the AC unit plugged in any longer, a fire is most definately a possibility. The thought begins to frighten me.
My mind begins to race as I think about the potential outcome of each possible situation. "Will the outlet overload with too much current?" These thoughts are not completely insane. My Mom's house still has the original wiring and I have been shocked on several occasions. Once was so bad, I went into a complete frenzy over a missing cat that was never missing.
I'm still sitting and thinking about what to do, when I come up with a solution. I unplug the AC, open all four windows in her room and plug in her box fan. I'm not sure how that is any better, but in my mind it worked. By the time I turned off the AC it was rather chilly in the room and it was raining outside. The breeze from the outside air helped cool things off, too.
No more worrying and hopefully I'll get some sleep. My dog, Pedro has been staring at me from the bed for quite some time now asking with his dark eyes when I'll be coming to bed.
Soon ... hopefully.
The funny thing as I sit here and write this, I still hear the soft humming of my ceiling fan and now the rain drops splashing outside Emma's window. I still have no idea what time it is.
Tara Maguire, a Sentinel reporter, welcomes advice and parenting stories at tmaguire@lewistownsentinel.com.
