Battle of the Bedroom (or When Sensory Issues Keep You Awake)

Welcome, sports fans, to the 395,687,630 face-off between Gus and Andrea in a battle royale for the coveted Good Night's Sleep trophy!

In the red corner, Gus weighs in with several weeks of good sleep and a four day weekend, giving him the advantage over his mom. His weaknesses will be a sudden recurrence of his fear of the dark and his sensory issues, like supersonic hearing. If he wakes up in the middle of the night, he will have a very hard time getting back to sleep, especially if he can't control his leg-shaking Whispering Scritch power, which has special effectiveness against Andrea's hypersensitive ears. Will he be able to hold it together? Also on the red team is MM, who has the power to talk anyone into complete madness. A dangerous opponent, especially in the pre-dawn hours.

In the blue corner we have Andrea, chronically sleep deprived, running out of patience and still recovering from yesterday's crushing defeat by MM who woke Andrea at 4:30 a.m. But don't count Andrea out yet, folks! She still has the ability to transform into Crazy Cranky Mom when awoken, with her Whispering Menace ability that can instill pure terror in any school aged child unfortunate enough to be the one to wake her. She may be able to use Gus's Whispering Scritch against him, and if he's not careful she will further transform into Psycho Mom. The only one who can prevent Psycho Mom from raining Armageddon down on the planet is her blue partner, DH. While he is perfectly capable of sleeping through the Armageddon, he is susceptible to her kicking him out of bed. Who will triumph between these two fearsome foes? Stay tuned!

Round 1
Gus convinces Andrea to let him sleep in the extra bed in the blue room for the night because he's afraid of monsters. Pulling out his Pitiful Look ability, he quickly subdues Andrea, and she gives in. Gus gets to bed with no problems and sleeps through the blue team going to bed a few hours later. Although Gus was ahead in points at the beginning of the round, Andrea's Stealth Mode balances the score.

Round 2
Gus suddenly wakes up screaming and flies into the bathroom, shocking Andrea out of a peaceful snooze at 1 o'clock. She controls her transformation and kicks DH awake to get Gus back in bed. Point to Andrea. But when Gus gets back in bed, the leg-shaking kicks in. Whispering Scritch hits Andrea hard and fast! She transforms - Crazy Cranky Mom is on the loose, and she let's go with Whispering Menace - the mom ability to scream and whisper at the same time.

"Be still and go to sleep or you are going back to your own room."

And Gus is silenced! The round goes to the blue team!

Round 3
"What was that? I heard the door!" Gus is still awake at 2 a.m. and Crazy Cranky Mom is done in; the prior night's defeat takes its toll. She grows into a 20 foot, green hulking beast (at least in her own mind - in reality , she's still under 5 1/2 feet tall and brown-skinned) - Psycho Mom has entered the building! But she's still hanging onto her self-control.

"That wasn't the door. Go back to sleep."

Gus is persistent - he knows he's got her on the ropes now. "What was it?" And just for a little added zing, he throws in a Whiny Voice.

But wait! Psycho Mom digs deep and finds some inner reserve of strength! "It's the roof settling. Go. Back. To. Sleep."

In a last desperate attempt, Gus reverts to Whispering Scritch and the leg starts shaking again. Psycho Mom is undone.

"You either be still and go to sleep or go back to your own bed!" Of course her shriek never raises above the level of intimate conversation. But the menace in her voice is so terrible, Gus throws the cover over his head and lies frozen, or at least quiets down enough for Psycho Mom to go back to sleep. Round to the blue team.

Round 3
The red team is in bad shape, so they pull out their secret weapon: the alarm clock. It goes off at 5:30; DH doesn't move. There is no world destruction requiring his immediate attention. MM strikes. She very noisily goes to the bathroom and then comes into the blue team's corner, where Gus is still KO'd. With her most powerful, pitiful whine, she moans, "Mooommmm-meeeeee! I'm lonely over there! Everyone's over heeeeeere and I'm the only one over there all by myselllllllf!" Psycho Mom has lost all her fight and shrinks back (not literally, since she never really grew in size) into her weaker Andrea form. With a whimper she gives in, kicks DH out of the bed and let's MM climb in. MM, pressing the advantage, accepting nothing less than a complete victory, starts talking loudly. And the red team takes it - Knock Out!

Andrea grumbles about running away to Chile.



P.S. I can either make myself laugh or lay down and cry. Choosing to laugh it off today. :-) Have you ever had a really bad night that you were able to laugh about the next day? Share your story!!