I’m still too keyed up to sleep. Or perhaps I’m caffeinated.

Last night was not one of the best nights of sleep I’ve ever had. Even when Beanie was a newborn and waking all the time, there was some pattern. But last night was . . . remarkable. So here are my remarks:

2300(-ish) (That’s 11:00 for civilians 😉 ): Sweetie and I go to bed. It might have been closer to midnight.

Midnight, or slightly thereafter (I didn’t look at the clock that time): Beanie starts to fuss, but isn’t putting his heart into it, or standing up in his crib. I lay in bed, hoping he will go back to sleep, because I feel like I hadn’t even slept yet. He does, about five minutes later. I drop back into a light sleep, waking every time he moves.

Between 0100 and 0200: I roll over. This is notable, because I rarely move at night. If I start on my left side, I stay on my left side. If I start on my right, my hip starts hurting halfway through the night, and I roll over. It often involves the cat moving around, too. Beanie is shifting around, too, and I seem to be waking every time.

0230: I wake up to a loud sound, about four or five loud bangs that kind of echo through the house. Thinking someone is pounding a hard object against our door, I wake my husband. There is no further banging, but he wanders about the house before getting his pistol and going downstairs to investigate. I almost follow him with the shotgun, but I haven’t used it in too long (which will be remedied soonest), so I go to the living room to look out the window. There is someone in the neighbor-across-the-drive’s yard with a flashlight, possibly the neighbor, but we’re not willing to go outside to find out. Sweetie opens the door and retrieves the mail he didn’t see on the porch the day before (yay! My curtain fabric is here!), and leaves the outside lights on. I wonder how in the world I’m going to sleep for the rest of the night.

0300: I eventually go back to bed, having exhausted all options for investigation open to me. No way am I sleepy! Well, I AM sleepy, but no way am I going to sleep! I analyze the sounds I heard while I play Words With Friends and read on my phone until my eyes force me to sleep, around 0340-ish. My next-door neighbor is awake and getting ready for work, if the lights on in his house are any indication.

0400: SLEEEEEEEP.

0445: Beanie wakes up. He is serious this time — really! He’s standing up in his crib, letting me know, under no uncertain terms, that I need to get up and change his diaper. And feed him. Until he’s asleep again.

0450: I cannot ignore him. I wake, I do those things.

0700: He’s finally asleep. I figure I get about half an hour of sleep till Pie wakes up, and by golly I’m going to claim it! It occurs to me sometime that the noises I heard might actually have been gunshots. But who on earth would have been shooting a gun outside our house?!

0900 (possibly, maybe earlier): Pie comes out of his room to find me on the couch. Tries to wake me, but I am sleepy and immobile. He’s just going to have to entertain himself for a while. He tells me to wake up and fix him breakfast. Not happening, kid.

0920: Forced awake by a stupid woodpecker pounding on my stupid roof. I know I should have fed my child, but he wouldn’t have starved. However, the one I wanted to continue sleeping was going to be woken up by an obnoxious bird, so that needed to stop. I put on my shoes and glasses and go out to scare the darn thing away. Come back inside and wonder how I’m going to function.

1000: Have had coffee, both children are awake and fed (I think). I see my neighbor across the street wandering around by the mailboxes and go outside to talk to him. I haven’t met him before, but I assume (correctly) that he’s the boyfriend of my actual across-the-street neighbor, whom I haven’t interacted with in ages. He tells me it definitely was gunshots I heard, and that he saw (or heard) two cars fleeing the scene shortly thereafter. It was his flashlight I saw when my husband was checking the front door. He was out looking for spent casings, but couldn’t see any. My heartrate goes to 11, knowing my suspicion was right. I probably shouldn’t have had that cup of caffeinated coffee.

1030: I had called my neighbor down the street, who technically lives behind the across-the-street neighbor and across from the next-door neighbor, but her driveway is between them. She calls me back to say they’re okay, but they hadn’t heard anything that night. She says she’d woken, but heard no sound. We chat for a bit, and she tells me that her nephew’s house was almost broken into while his wife was there, around 0700 — just a few miles from here. This does not make me less paranoid.

11 or 1200: Next-door neighbor comes home. I rush out to talk to him. He and his wife had heard the gunshots, but saw nothing. He did see a car zoom away from the bottom of the street when he left for work, though, which was kind of weird. He has a dummy camera just inside his fence that we both wish was real, but he also has a game camera in a tree nearby that may have caught something, but more likely nothing at all, because there’s a big bush blocking the view of the end of the driveway. I get his and his wife’s cell phone numbers (but just realized I didn’t give him mine — oops! I blame sleep deprivation). My oldest son is sticking his head outside the front door, even though I’d told him repeatedly to stay upstairs. Beanie is yelling from the top of the stairs, fortunately cautious enough to not follow his brother down. Argh. It might be time for a gate.

1300: Next-door neighbor knocks and shows me five shell casings he found at the corner of his driveway, between all our houses. They are blackened brass (oxidized, rather than painted), and unstamped, but obviously (after a little research) nothing less than a .45. He says he called the sheriff’s department, but they said there was nothing they could do. However, should it happen again, we should call 911. (Later in the day, a sheriff deputy, who is a family friend of ours, confirms that procedure.)

1330 to 1630: I somehow get the kids to nap/play quietly while I get some “me” time in. I am paranoid, and look out the window at the sound of every car coming up the road. I’m also really tired, but caffeinated and keyed up. In case I haven’t mentioned it in a previous post, caffeine makes me jittery and anxious. And I’d had a regular cup of coffee and caffeinated Earl Grey tea. It is not a state I care to be in, but I also dislike being sleepy and nonfunctional.

1700: Husband is home. Kids are up and LOUD. I’m going out of my mind, but I’m making pancakes. BEER pancakes! And they are awesome!

1800: Finally leaving for my Ladies Enrichment kickoff in Tacoma, but still tired, paranoid, and jittery.

2100: Enrichment was fun and seemed to take the edge off a little. Get some groceries (child-free!) and head home — hoping that my family is just fine, and they are. But Beanie is still awake. Natch.

2200: Beanie is finally asleep, and I get to take a shower.

2300: Not sleepy. Skype with my dad and drink a glass of wine.

0000 (midnight): Done Skyping. Realize I should probably go to bed, because I have to get up in six hours.

0015: Finishing this post.

I want to get picture documentation of the shooting “incident” — which I’m now thinking might have been a drug deal gone bad. It’s a terrible place to have a clandestine meeting, because it’s so residential, however, it’s also PITCH dark. I’m hoping to mitigate future clandestine meetings there by turning on our garage lights at night. My husband and I have also agreed to get motion-activated lighting for the front and back yards, ASAP, and I’ve talked him into light sensors for the garage lights, so they’ll come on when it’s dark and go off when it’s light. We also need to frost (or something) the window next to the front door.

I think the thing that freaks me out the worst about the shooting is that we can’t find bullets. What did those idiots shoot? The woods? There are propane tanks out here, for Heaven’s sake! And houses in close proximity! But now I’m wondering if someone didn’t get shot and driven off to be dumped. It freaks me out that something like that could happen mere feet from my house.

Well, I can’t deny that I really need to go to bed. I’m glad I’m getting out of the house tomorrow for some adult time with Christian ladies. I could really use it . . .

(And now it’s 0038, and I REALLY need to go to bed. Hoping I get to sleep till my alarm wakes me . . . and that I don’t sleep through it . . . )