super powers...

I have ears.

Two of 'em, actually. One on each side of my head. Just the way they are supposed to be.

Nicely formed, if I do say so myself, and they both work quite well. They aren't too large like Horton, and not too small like Jerry. They are just right...for me.

Every Friday morning after the kids are safely in school, a small group of us ladies get together for coffee and conversation. A koffee klatch, per se.

I love these ladies.

I really do.

They are always a constant source of support and inspiration; laughs and amusement.

I look forward to Friday mornings.

This Friday past the conversation veered to sleep patterns. Go figure. With the holidays zooming in, obligations stacking up, schedules tight, we talked about how we are individually dealing with it.

I've long left my diva days behind. I'm a 'early to bed and early to rise' type. I figure I must have been a farmer in a past life. When it gets dark, I go to bed. When the sun rises, I get up. Pretty simple stuff, boring perhaps, but simple nonetheless.

But as of late due to my overworked brain, my farmer has left the field. Sometimes it works for me. Sometimes it doesn't.

There are those nights that you just can't quite fall to sleep. And the more you dwell on your lack of sleep, the less able you are to relax to let the zzz's come over you.

One of the klatch ladies shared that she takes Tylenol PM which aids her in her quest for rest. Another chimed in that Benedryl works for her. And as I'm adding a little more sugar and a little more cream to my heavily caffinated beverage allowing me to remove the toothpicks aiding in holding my puffy eyes open, I'm thinking a martini later might help. We chuckled through our fatigue about our common bond of sleepless nights, the conversation circled around.

Christine said she'd lost her ear.

"Um, your ear? Are you a distant VanGogh relative? I know it's been cold, but how did you lose your ear?" Secretly I'm scanning the sides of her head under her hair to see if there is a bandage concealing something missing.

She said, "My 'Mom Ear'."

"Wha...?"

Her ability to hear what's going on around her once she's asleep.

Aaaahhhhh. MOM Ear.

I have them.

Mom Ears.

I just didn't know what they were called.

They don't look any different than regular ears, they just react different.

I never fall too deeply asleep. I can always hear what's going on.
I not only tune in to my own household, but hear the sounds from the neighborhood as well. Even with the windows shut tight for the winter I hear my next door neighbors when they pull in or out of the driveway. When they drag their garbage can down to the curb at 5am, or come home at 3. I seem to be the only one to hear this. No one else in the house does. None of my other neighbors hear it as well. But I do.

Is my hearing that great?

Have I been blessed with some super power?

Last night I heard car doors. At 5am. I had to get up for a drink of water and to release some water anyway, so I peeked out the windows. My master bedroom is up on the third floor of my century home. The eves act like giant ears. I can see everything from that vantage point, and hear most things for blocks. A pair of binoculars and I could be my very own block watch.

There are 4 police cruisers on my dark street and 5 uniformed officers. They are going back to their cruisers from my neighbors house a few doors down. Strolling back in no hurry. No visible agitation, no one in handcuffs. Why are they here before the break of dawn? My mind is running all possible scenarios. I've not come up with anything yet...but damn did my ears work well.

My daughter has 'selective hearing'. If you mention chocolate chip cookies, she can hear you from several yards over. If you ask her if her homework is done, I might as well be on the moon.

I had a dog with selective hearing.

And a husband too.

Is this super hearing 'mom ear' a learned thing? Or are you born with it.

Does it come with parenthood?

Or marriage?

I remember waking as soon as my husband would pull in the drive when he was out with friends. Before his usually late arrival I was blissfully taking in the sights of my inner eyelids. But as soon as I heard the tires on pavement...I'd be wide awake.

My mother had super hearing. Or now since Christine told me, Mom Ears.

We lived at a base of a hill. It was quiet there, outside of the gentle sound from the stream in the backyard. You could sometimes hear a distant train, or over head air traffic from the airport 10 miles away. Very few cars came down our road. It was a very tranquil neighborhood.

My bedroom had a balcony. Prior to cable we had a large tower antenna right off my balcony. High tech for it's time, it could rotate to pick up a television signal. We could get stations from different states. It also provided a stellar way to enter or exit the house without being noticed.

Or so I thought.

I had a curfew.

Many times I broke it.

One time coming home, I switched off the my cars engine at the top of the hill and coasted into the driveway, bringing it to a stop quiet as a mouse. I snuck around back, stealthily climbed the antenna tower and hoisted myself gracefully across the banister. As I went to open the patio doors there stood my mother.

"Why didn't you use the front door? I left it open for you." she asked me ever so politely.

"Uh, I didn't want to wake you...?", I sheepishly (and foolishly) threw out there as a possible excuse.

She just gave me that look.

You know the one.

The one that tells you you are full of kaka but I'm not going to acknowledge that because you and I both know you are in the wrong but I don't want to wake your father because it really isn't that big of a deal however next time don't make me stand waiting for you to sneak in the house off the balcony.

That look.

I hated getting that look.I tried not to get that look. I'd had rather a barrage of profanity's or a verbal lambasting about responsibility. I might have even preferred a paddling. But not the look.

The look could make you cringe.

And make you cry.

And also make you hope that you will be good enough in the future to never, ever see it again.

Unfortunately I did see it again. Several times. I was a diva!

But it never hurt me any less. And over time, I did get better. And low and behold I did see it less. I wonder if I'll get 'that look' as well as my inherited 'mom ears'. Maybe I should start working on it...

MY look won't look like hers, I'm sure.

I've tried to practice it a few times, but I just look like I'm constipated.

What a dire punishment that would be for an errant offspring.

To give them the look that makes them run...

for the Ex-Lax.

:-)