Sleepwalking

I come from a family of sleepwalkers. I admit it. As a kid, there were reports of me just wandering around the house and even at times having limited conversations. Now, at first it freaked out my mother and then she realized I was asleep just by the glassy look in my eyes. I don't remember a thing. There were those family stories of my mother being asleep and digging through closets in her younger days much to the consternation of her sibling.

Well, as genetic tendencies go, I have a suspicion that this is a trait or tendency I did pass down. Realizing this can be a very serious and threatening condition for some, we came to realize the sleepwalking usually reared up when our child was extremely tired or worn out. We can laugh about it now but it was concerning to us at the time.

One incident in particular was when we were traveling. We had been to the graduation celebration in Chester. For those of you who never had the experience of graduation as THE big social event of the year, well, you missed out. The CHB graduation was an event to be looked forward to since it involved multiple invitations to multiple locations and a boat load of good food. It also involved staying up really, really late.

This particular time, we attended the festivities and by the time we got back to the motel, we were all wiped out. It was five-ish in the morning, when I woke up to what I thought was someone trying to break into our motel room. I am so nearsighted I knew the door was opening and the only thing stopping it was the security chain. I could not figure out what the heck was going on but it was instant terror.

My husband jumped up and shot toward the door and I searched for my glasses. We weren't being broken into however. The sleepwalker was trying to break out. The only thing that stopped her (thank goodness) was the security chain. She was sound asleep, with the bed spread wrapped around her trying to get out of the room. She remembers nothing of it. We were all a bit freaked out at the time. We laugh about it today because she was hellbent on getting out of that room and nothing happened other that a lack of sleep for all of us.

The other sleepwalking times we know about involved her rummaging through her closet and waking up her sibling who was less than thrilled to find the noise was she sleeping sister throwing things around the closet. Another time she was pounding her fingers on the wall above her bed. When she was told to go to lie down and go back to sleep, she said she couldn't, she had to type the code. This was really even before she could type. Go figure. We didn't remember watching any 'spy' movies or shows or anything so we were never certain where the code reference came from.

Another time, she was videotaping in her sleep. As a student manager, she took her videotaping job seriously because she knew it was important to Coach T. She would sit up in bed, sound asleep mind you, and have her hand positioned like it was around a camera. She was "taping" a match in her sleep.

Again, we are fortunate enough to be able to have these stories to share but it will be important to the kids down the road to remember. I will be the one continuing to remind them to get their rest even now that they are grown-ups. I just can't help it. We don't need anyone else trying to break out. LOL