Dreams, Interrupted

Who's a smart doggy?

I woke to Chloe, our 4-month-old Lab puppy, whining to go outside. She doesn't do this often, thank goodness. I endured eight consecutive years of one child or another waking up in the middle of the night (multiple times), and I was *very* happy when Chloe was finally able to go more than two hours without needing to pee. 

My husband, bless his heart, stirred in bed next to me, and I nuzzled deeper into the mattress knowing that he was getting up to take her outside. 

"What time is it?" I whispered. "Just after midnight," he replied. I smiled at that. Nothing is sweeter than waking up in the middle of the night knowing you still have almost five hours left to sleep. 

My husband got out of bed and made his own way to the bathroom. Chloe started her whining again, and I muttered a few sleepy assurances that Daddy would be back any minute to take her out. But the whining didn't stop, and my husband didn't return. It's okay, I tried to tell her, but I found I couldn't quite get the words out. The whining got louder and more insistent, and I started to get really irritated with my husband for taking so long. I sat up in bed, annoyed, thinking that I would just take her out myself! 

And that's when I realized my husband was sound asleep next to me and the time on the clock read 4:59 . . . only eleven minutes until my alarm was set to go off at 5:10. I'd been dreaming the entire time! But Chloe really was whining, and doing a lot of it., so I had no choice but to get up and out of bed, despite how exceptionally tired I was. *Disclaimer: I may have stayed up past my bedtime getting caught up on missed episodes of Game of Thrones. I think that show has more violence than I'm comfortable with. I had to cover my eyes at the botched beheading. Should have plugged my ears, too.* 

I'm really feeling those eleven minutes of missed sleep this morning. Nevertheless, with the aid of a few cups of coffee, I vow to finish the last chapter of Blood Type today and begin the last round of edits before sending the manuscript off to my critique group. Hopefully within the next few months I'll have a cover to reveal!