Early Morning Visits from God, The Utility Guy and the Crying Eyed Cat

Since the time that I was pregnant with my first child I have struggled with insomnia.  I wake abruptly and all throughout the night with sudden realizations that I forgot to put Downy in the rinse cycle or failed to mail the water payment in a timely manner.    I never wake from the thoughts that should wake someone, such as..."The iron is on and the curtains are beginning to smolder."  The thoughts that throw me awake are subtle whispers that I failed to accomplish everything on my "Mom" To Do List.    A pattern began to emerge over the years and most nights I wake at exactly 3:33 a.m.  Instead of finding this odd, I find comfort in the fact that I am keeping to a schedule.  While I am acutely aware of numeric patterns, this has never stood out to me as strange.  When I was eight months pregnant,  I would wake from a foot lodged in my bladder and joke that it must be 3:33 a.m.  It always was. It was playtime for the baby.  My son has had the same crazy sleep habit since gestation.  As he moved into his teen years, he once again began to wake at exactly 3:33 a.m.  Now there are two of us in this house of no sleep.  In an attempt to keep to our daily schedules and not be late due to an absence of R.E.M. sleep, I moved my alarm clock ahead ten minutes.  And yet...when I am thrown awake each morning trying to smell the burning curtains or Downy April Freshness, it is again 3:33 a.m.  My manipulation of the clock has had no effect on our odd sleep habit.  It was just recently that I heard tale that this is a common phenomenon and people around the world experience the same early morning wake up call at exactly 3:33 a.m.  There are many reasons listed on the internet and they vary greatly in explanation. Some say it is God whispering to you and others claim it to be a more scary call from the underworld guy.  (I knew the devil ran the water company. He’s peeved about my bill and wants to talk)  I'm curious how we can jump from one end of the spectrum to the other in explaining this common sleep pattern and exactly how does one gain this privileged information about how God and/or the devil communicate...Wikipedia, I suppose.    I like to think that it is God, but it concerns me that all these years He has been speaking to me and I assumed it was the laundry calling me.  What a gross error in judgment!   I read about how the soul can travel to astral planes and this is the time of the morning that it returns to the body.  I'm uncertain exactly what an astral plane is, but I'm quite concerned about the chance that souls are coming and going all throughout the night in my house.  There is enough activity in my house at night and now I'm led to believe that there is another dimension of activity occurring.  Does anyone ever get any sleep?   While this turn-style for souls has possibly manifested in my house, you must know that there is also a little boy who sings in our kitchen at night.  Perhaps he got off at the wrong house.  Nobody has ever seen him, but each of us has heard his sweet song echo down our hallway.  I teach my kids to enjoy such things and not be afraid.  We don't make it out to be ghosts or lost souls- we simply accept that something has occurred that cannot be explained by any of us. To add to the night’s activities in this house with no sleep, my daughter has two hamsters that feel that nighttime is the best time to run and run and run on that dang metal wheel of fun they have in their cage.   Maybe they are running from the singing boy or from the smell of burning curtains.  Most likely, they are running from the crying eyed cat that sits in front of their cage at midnight.  It’s a sad little kitty, born way too early and without any tear ducts in one eye - so it cries non-stop.  Disturbing, but cute in a cuddly “I need something else to take care of” way.    So tonight,  after I turn the iron off, comfort the kitty, and thank the Lord for my working utilities, I will drop off to sleep and hope for another wake up call from a higher power.  I have a lot of things I need to thank Him for and a little lost sleep is well worth the chance to do so.