If a dog barks, can a sleeping deaf person hear it?

When I first started the babysitting gig, which began at 5:30 a.m. (that's murder for a night owl like me!), my ex-husband would stop by my place on his way to work to wake me up in time for a quick shower. I don't have one of those alarm clocks for the deaf (my ex got it in the divorce -- HAH! But his job is a "real job" and he needed it more than I did), so I've pretty much tried to rely on an internal alarm clock to wake me up in the mornings. This, of course, required some time. I had to get into the habit of waking up at 5 a.m. Or...5-ish, really.

So, for a while, my ex waking me up was how I was all up, showered, dressed and brimming with caffeine by the time the little boy I babysat got here.

Then my ex tired of this. It was a hassle for him to keep that up, so he stopped.

At a time I DIDN'T have my internal alarm set just YET. *groan* And at this point, I still didn't have enough money for one of those special alarm clocks for the deaf!

What to do? What to do?

I tried to figure out SOME kind of solution to help me get up so early in the morning. I used to have a pager that would vibrate when I was paged, and if I had one now, I could put it under my pillow and if/when someone paged me, it would do the trick to wake me up. But, that was out since I didn't have one.

I briefly debated over asking my neighbor, Darrell, to get me up that early in the morning. But I don't know his hours and, besides, those guys do A LOT of shows that last LATE at night, and which involve a lot of drinking, so hell would freeze over before he'd get out of bed THAT early after a night like that. (I once went over there the day after they had a show and I didn't know they were still asleep, this AFTER 10 a.m., and ended up waking Darrell up. Oops!) Sooo, nah. That was out, too.

So I just decided..."screw it." Let another day come and see what happens. MAYBE if the father pounded on the door hard enough, I would feel it and it'd wake me up. (Trust me, people HAVE my permission to pound on my door. Seriously!) Or, maybe it would wake my daughter up and then she'd wake me up? Sounds selfish, I know. But at least SHE could go back to sleep....

And at least I wasn't babysitting the kid EVERY DAY.

Anyway. Guess what ended up happening after all? The morning I was "winging it," and they knocked at my door, MY DOG woke me up.

Yup. That's right. A dog's barking woke up a deaf person.

My tiny Chihuahua, who sleeps on my bed with me and my girl, barked his head off and woke me up. But it wasn't his barking that got me awake; it was his MOVEMENTS which I felt right next to me. (He shakes when he barks like that. Haha.) When I had my Australian Shepherd, Lukas, who was a BIG DOG, his bark was loud enough for me to hear it. (New York could hear it!) But Chewbacca's bark is, well, not THAT loud, though I have been told his barking has hurt the ears of some people. Well, it's not LOUD enough for ME to hear it. But he definitely MOVES around when he barks, and that right there is enough to awaken me and let me know someone's knocking at the door. (Or WAS knocking at the door -- some people just give up after a minute or so and end up walking off before I open my door.)

I bring this up because I find it really interesting that a small dog barking next to me, a DEAF person, while I sleep would wake me up. It happened again this morning, when my neighbor, Jimmy, came by with his key and housecleaning instructions.

Sometimes, though...and I find this interesting, too. Sometimes, I'll awaken all on my own when something is going on. I always get nervous when I have a restless night. Maybe that's because on the night Lukas died, I didn't sleep AT ALL. I kept waking up and going to check on him in the kitchen until he later passed on (which I discovered the next morning). So if I have trouble sleeping, I usually get out of bed and go around the house, checking everything. I make sure doors and windows are closed/locked. I check on my daughter to make sure she's ok. I check outside the windows to make sure no one is there. But sometimes I WILL see people there. Usually, it's my neighbors on one side, sitting on the porch talking, or my neighbor on the other side, getting his car ready as he prepares to leave for work.

That happened yesterday morning. I woke up at around the time Jimmy was out front, on his way to leave for work.

And my dog didn't even bark to alert me to that. But it's still nice that his barking is an alternative alarm clock I can rely on, at least for when someone is knocking at my door. But what an INTERESTING alarm clock for a deaf person to have! Hmmm.