Most of the time, when I share a story about a sleep-deprived, pet-owning mother, it’s myself I’m talking about. But not this time. This time the sleep-deprived mother was Koral Midkiff of Barboursville (formerly of Charleston), sharing the story of her night in an email to her mom, Kathy Canonico. Who shared it with me (with her daughter’s permission).

It seems Koral was having trouble getting her 11-year-old daughter, Taylor, to bed. “I can’t get her to settle down and go to sleep, and I have to get up for work at 4:30 a.m.,” Koral writes. “She keeps coming into my room asking for silly things, like wanting to wash her hair, even though it’s well after midnight.”
Taylor has a pet hamster, Potato (”a fitting name for a round, tan ball of fur”), that usually lives in a habit trail, but thanks to Taylor’s constant state of motion that night, the hamster has somehow come to be roaming the hallway.

“I’m yelling at Taylor to GO TO SLEEP and she’s yelling back at me just as loud,” writes Koral. “The cat jumps off the bed and a few seconds later, we hear this piercing ‘Eeek!’ We both realize what the sound is: The cat has Potato.

“Taylor screams. I hear panic and tears in her voice, so like any good mom–in spite of how frustrated and tired I am, in spite of knowing that at best, I’ll only have three hours of sleep (if I ever actually get to sleep)–I take off flying downstairs after the cat.

“About the same time I’m slipping on a pile of dirty clothes at the bottom of the stairs, I catch a glimpse of the cat and I realize where it’s headed–through the cat door, Potato in tow.

“Of course, I’m not wearing my fancy matching pajamas. Oh no. Instead, I’m barefoot and wearing my ‘git-r-done’ pajama bottoms and a non-matching purple tank top (with no bra). But I know if I don’t get this hamster back, there will be hysterical tears all night long and I’ll never, ever get any sleep.

“So out the front door I go. At 1 a.m. Chasing after a cat with a screeching hamster in its mouth. Yelling, ‘Drop it! Drop it!’ as loud as I dare.

“The cat tears around the corner of the apartment parking lot across the street and I’m right behind him. Finally, I get close enough to scare the cat into letting go of Potato, only now I realize that instead of chasing the cat, I’m going to be chasing a still-screeching hamster. I know he’s so traumatized that even if I do manage to catch him, it’s probably going to cost me a chunk of my hand, but catching him doesn’t seem very likely as he shoots off across the grass.

“I sprint across the lawn and manage to stop him by trapping him under my bare foot, then carefully reach down and scoop up Potato and head back to the house, all the while trying to verbally soothe the trembling rodent.

“The bottoms of my pajama pants are soaked from running through the wet grass, and I’m out of breath and panting, but I feel good–picturing how happy and grateful my daughter will be when she sees what I’ve done.

“I walk in the house and look up to the top of the stairs, holding Potato up victoriously.

“‘I got him!’ I say proudly. ‘He’s alive!’

“Taylor looks at me, blinks and yawns, then says, ‘That’s good, Mom. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.’ Then she turns and goes to her room, closing the door behind her. Leaving me and Potato looking at each other at the foot of the stairs.

“You know, I’d been thinking about asking the doctor to run some tests to find out why I’m so tired all the time, but if I really stop and think about it, it would be a waste of money.”

And trust me, Koral. There are many other pet-owning, sleep-deprived mothers who have thought that same thing.

Do you have a story as funny as this one you’d be willing to share? If so, PLEASE send it to karinfuller@cnpapers.com.

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