Robbed.

Three nights ago, S and I were up late working. Nothing unusual about that---being overworked freelancers, it's what we do sometimes. Especially since, with 2 little kids under age five, night-time is one of the few times we can have some peace and quiet. Around 1am we both heard a crash that sounded like someone rummaging though the garbage bins on the street. Garbage Day was the day before so we both assumed that someone was putting their bins back late at night.

The next morning something was wrong. Our black bin was missing from the side of our house. Somehow the bin was not behind our locked side gate where we had placed it the night before.

Uh oh.

Stupidly we'd left the back entrance to our garage unlocked and somehow burglars had gotten into our backyard, gone into our garage and stolen about $800 worth of power tools. Besides the tools, they'd also taken a heavy metal utility ladder, a motorized "Zappy" (yup, we're geeks) and, to add insult to injury, our brand new winter boots! (and, who knows what else--it's a mess back there) Then they loaded everything into the garbage bin, went out through the gate and wheeled it all away. All while we were at home and awake in our land of false security.

At the time that this happened my first thought was--'Wow. This could have been so much worse. Thank g-d they didn't get into the house, etc etc." But as time went by I started to feel more and more freaked out by the whole thing to the point where I was having regular recurring nightmares about robberies, guns, garbage bins, etc. So, last night around 11pm, the fuckers came back for more. Apparently they neglected to take our bikes and camping gear and were coming back to finish the job. We both heard it. A very loud crash by the side of the house. S ran to the front door to catch someone standing guard with an umbrella by our side gate while the other person (a large male?) had hoisted himself over our 8ft tall side gate. S screamed "HEY!!!!" at the intruder and then called 911. After being initially put on hold, ten minutes later twenty or so cops showed up. By then the intruders were gone. C woke up and was inconsolable. He did not stop screaming for 3 more hours. (I kid you not). One diaper change, two bottles and some extra tight swaddling later, C still refused to return to his crib. Finally, around 5am when we all started to drift off to sleep, for no apparent reason the smoke alarm went off.

Is the universe trying to tell us that it's time to move?