Just beep me

Well, I thought I was doing us a favor.

Just days after my mother-in-law, Hurricane Jane, moved in with us from her assisted living center (she needed too much assistance, they said), The Coach and I discovered that baby monitors are, indeed, meant for babies. They are meant to keep a watchful ear (or eye, if you dole out the extra money) on cute, sweet little babies who make soft, sweet cooing noises at night. NOT 82-year-old grandmothers who moan, and groan, and snore, and fart, and have to get up to pee every hour and a half.

We learned this after about the second night of no sleep. For any of us. And after about the third day of her calling into midair for my husband, "Mawty" or simply, "Help!" and expecting us to come running. Let's just say it got real old, real quick.

So, Internet junkie that I am, I scoured the webs for an alternative. I quickly found one at this web site called Activeforever.com.   Think of it as a BabiesRUs for old people. Seriously. It has everything you could possibly think of to make life a little easier for senior citizens and those who end up taking care of them. Including this handy dandy little gadget.

It's a pager. Grandma wears the button part around her neck. When she needs "Help!" she can just push the button and the pager will beep or buzz. We were so excited.

For about a minute.

After insisting, "I'm not using that," Grandma got the hang of the button really quickly. And it was cute. We turned the monitors off and got a GREAT night's sleep on Friday.

Then came the weekend. While I was off covering volleyball, and the person we hired to help us during the week had the weekend off, The Coach was on Grandma Duty.

He spent the day Saturday answering her every "Beep."

"I want ice cream."

"I'm finished with my ice cream."

"I have to go to the bathroom."

"I'm hot."

"I'm cold."

"My butt hurts."

At one point, she beeped him from across the room.

"I didn't think you'd hear me," she said.

By the time I got home Saturday evening, half the Bourbon in the house was gone and The Coach was ready to smash that pager to smithereens.

Then came Sunday.

While The Coach and I sat in our living room watching the New Orleans Saints destroy the Atlanta Falcons (WHO DAT!) and my fantasy football team, The Lyons Lions, score mucho points, Grandma sat in her room with her button.

Which she pressed 18 times. Between the hours of 10 a.m. and 11 p.m.

18 times.

I know because he kept track. He kept score is more like it.

She wanted toast.

She wanted in her chair.

She wanted out of the chair.

She wanted to go to the bathroom.

She wanted bologna.

She was done with the bologna.

She wanted socks.

She wanted back in the chair.

She needed to go to the bathroom.

18 times.


By the end of the day, The Coach was ready to stick that button where the sun never shines and I think he was ready to kill me for finding it in the first place.

"I thought I had done good," I said.

He just shook his head in wonder.

At least we slept good. But we need more Bourbon.

Wake up calls

So it's now been a little more than a week since my mother-in-law, heretofore known as Hurricane Jane, moved in with us after being essentially kicked out of her assisted living apartment north of the lake for needing too much assistance.

Really? Has it only been a week? Gosh, I thought it was at least a month. Or more.

I guess it just feels that way because of the time change and all. We gained back a whole hour of our lives, right? (Or did we lose one? I forget.)

I know this: I have lost a copious amount of sleep over the past week.

Seriously. Sleep is seriously underrated.


We have moved Hurricane Jane into the room at the foot of the attic stairs in our quirky old house, andwe had a wall built to close them off. We used to have to go through this room to go up the stairs. Now, when we want to go upstairs to our bedroom or to my new home office, we have to go outside  through the side porch door then in through another door to the stairs. Weird. I know.

I did this yesterday wearing nothing but a towel after my shower.

That kooky room has had many incarnations. It once was my office, then my daughter's beautiful white nursery, then her disaster of a toy room, then her really cool stage room (Yes, we put up a stage with lights), then her cool tween hang out, then my beachy-themed mom cave (for about a month), then my daughter's beachy-themed cave, then dad's baseball themed cave. Now it's Jane's cave.

Lora's stage! The stairs are behind that wall.

And it is a cave. She's not a vampire, really, but she doesn't like light. Any. So I had to put up curtains to block out the sun for her.

And unlike the first time she moved in, with everything she owned in a small plastic grocery bag after Hurricane Katrina took everything else, this time she showed up with a wheelchair and a walker and a contraption for the toilet and a contraption to take a bath and a bed and a dresser and a chest of drawers and an electric recliner chair and a BIG 52-inch television. And I was supposed to figure out how to put all that stuff on ONE ROOM.

I did.  (But the BIG 52 is about to go.)

The first night was miserable. 

My husband went out and purchased a brand new baby monitor for her room. One receiver is in the living room and the other is upstairs in our bedroom. The first night, we lay awake all night, listening to her breathe, and snore, and moan, and groan, and talk in her sleep. We both were reminded of the first time we used a baby monitor, when our baby girl was but a baby and we used to listen to make sure she was, indeed, breathing.


We were reassured often, however, because about every other hour, she calls out to her son to come help her go to the bathroom. (She can't go by herself. We have to get her out of bed, take her to the bathroom, put her back in the chair, and put her back to bed.)

"Mawty."

Of course, just as he did when our daughter was but a baby, he sleeps right through it. I hear it, however, and get to nudge him to get up.

But after about the fourth time, I start to feel really sorry for him. And her.


It was a rough night, that first one. I could not sleep at all, thanks to her breathing and moaning and groaning and snoring on the baby monitor and The Coach snoring beside me. I got snoring in stereo.

And I was a wreck the next day..

The second night was a little better. But still she would wake up about every hour, complaining that she wasn't comfortable and/or she had to go to the bathroom. A few times she just said, "I have to get up."

Where she was going, we don't know.

By the end of the week we realized that she was the princess, and there was a pea under her mattress somewhere. The bed was too soft. Too lumpy. And every time she woke up, she figured she'd just go pee.

So bright and early one morning we went down the street to the local furniture store and bought her a new extra firm mattress. We asked if we could take naps on it first, but they said no. And we did try out a few sofas to see if we could find one for the naps it appears we will be taking. Often.

I also hugged the lady when she promised the new mattress would be delivered later that afternoon. And that night was better.

Then on Wednesday we hired a sitter named Freda, someone to come during the day and tend to her needs so I can go up to my new home office and do what I need to do. And take a nap.

But the nights are hard. Last night she called him five or six times. Unable to hear us say, "Coming!" she yells over and over again until one of us gets there. Sometimes she just yells, "Help!"

I have taken to wearing earplugs again, to try to drown out the sounds of breathing and snoring and moaning  -- both of theirs. It only works sometimes. I rolled on about 90 minutes of sleep on Thursday, fueling myself with leftover candy and cakes from our Halloween party the night before.

I can't even fathom how the Coach gets through a school day.

Just like when the baby was a baby, we are learning to sleep when she does. And nap when and where we can.  Sometimes at inopportune times and places -- like the furniture store.

So don't be offended if we nod off at hour house. On your sofa. Or at the red light down the street. Just tiptoe around us. Even if we're awake.

Right after Lora was born, my old boss said to me, "Don't worry. You can sleep when you're dead."

We will have some serious catching up to do.