Things That Go Thump in the Night

I’m not sure what made me do it, but I’m glad that I did. I secured the hotel room door with both the lock and the bolt.

On Saturday evening after we returned from a family wedding, the kids were all tucked in their hotel beds, while I snuck in a little reading time before turning out the lights.

At 1:16 am, I was woken by a loud “guh-gunk” noise. Repeatedly. In quick succession.

It took me a moment to realize that unlike the night before when I was awoken at 2:00 am by a bunch of kids having a tailgate party outside my hotel room window that this noise was coming from inside the hotel room.

It was Bubaloo. At the hotel room door. Trying to get to the bathroom to pee. Only, he had mistaken the hotel room door for the bathroom door.

He was sleepwalking. Totally unaware of his surroundings. He had somehow managed to turn the lock on the door, but had not managed to unfasten the deadbolt.

I crawled out of bed to re-direct him to the bathroom. He did the rest of his business in the toilet after having done the first part of his business in his PJs. I wrangled him into clean-ish, non-wet PJs, and he crawled back into bed still sound asleep.

I was between extreme laughter and terror. What if he had of got out of the hotel room and peed in the hallway? How would he have got back into the room once the door had automatically locked behind him?

All I could imagine was this little sleepwalking boy wandering up and down the hallway of the Super 8 peeing on various peoples’ door (and frankly if he had of got out that wouldn’t be too far from the truth). I was simultaneously amused and horrified of how far he could have walked and what could have happened to him. How does one return a boy who is totally unconscious of his surroundings in a strange, unfamiliar place to the room where he is supposed to be?

This is the stuff that family legends are made of.