I hate seagulls.

I now hate seagulls. This is a new-found hatred, and I blame my son. In order for Syed Brian to sleep, he needs some sort of white noise in the background. In a moment of infinite wisdom, Syed and I purchased an alarm clock that also doubles as a sound machine. It includes six nature sounds from which to choose. Syed Brian prefers the ocean noise to sleep.

Like many parents, Syed and I have a monitor in our room so that we can hear Syed Brian when he wakes up. It is a very sensitive monitor, and it picks up the ocean noise from the sound machine. The first few nights, Syed and I enjoyed the sound of the ocean and congratulated ourselves on being extremely resourceful - we only had to buy one sound machine and two bedrooms benefit from the soothing sounds!!!

And then I started to hate seagulls. You see, about every 3-4 minutes on the ocean sounds, a flock of seagulls flies overhead. So, when you can't sleep, or when you're trying desperately to catch another 10 minutes of peace before the day begins, you start to hear seagulls. And you hear more seagulls. And then you start to hate seagulls because they never fly away...they circle overhead and make seagull noise every 3-4 minutes right on schedule.

Simon and Charlie are extremely confused by the seagulls, too. They thought we lived in the midwest, not on an ocean coast. We've tried to explain it to them, but they are perplexed. We finally just told them that the seagulls are a result of the little human. They did not thank us for the seagulls nor the little human. In due time...

We're going to Hawaii in 3 months. I really hope the seagulls space out their flights overhead by at least 10 minutes. Or we're going to be in trouble.