Things go BUMP in the night

Sound asleep . . .snoring in my bed . . . LOUD NOISE. . .maybe it was a dream . . . maybe Mark stumbled into the wall when he got up to go to the bathroom.  I thought to myself, "I'll roll over and turn my pillow over to the cool side and I'll go back to sleep."  Well, of course I couldn't go back to sleep.  Do you know why?  Because once I was awakened, I had to go to the bathroom.  I rolled over and punched the clock - 4:40a.  Dadgum it.  So I got up and came out of the bedroom and started into the bathroom.  I heard someone say, "mom?"  "mom?"  I noticed a light was on.  My first thought . . .wait for it . ..I'm such a bad wife and mother . . my first thought was, "oh crap.  someone is sick."  How could I have even thought that in a split second?  But I did .  .  . because I'm a bad wife and mother.  Glenn said, "did you hear something?"  Oh yeah.  That loud noise I just heard.  I wasn't dreaming.  Yeah!  I heard something.  Relief - it was a noise - not sickness.  I am a really bad wife and mother.  I can't help it.  Noise is so much better than throw up.  That  noise was really loud.  I didn't dream it.  Glenn said that he and Lauren had heard it also - not just once but at least twice - and that George, our neighbor's dog, was barking like crazy.  I went to the back door and turned on all the outside lights.  I thought that a tree had possibly fallen after the storm.  I didn't see a single thing out of place.  Glenn went to the front door and turned on those outside lights.  By this time, Glenn and Lauren and I were all standing in our nightclothes staring through the blinds into the front yard . . .at 4:45 in the morning . . . with unbrushed teeth . . .sleepy in our eyes (do you call it sleepy in your eyes?).  We still didn't see anything or anyone.  We did see a car speeding quickly down the road . . .newspaper delivery I assume (sure hope it wasn't a burglar or something . . . .).  Have you noticed anyone missing from this story?  Finally about this time, Mark joined the party.  Mark came out of the bedroom fully dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and he went out to the driveway to make sure that no one has messed with the cars and realized that he left his car unlocked all night . . .but all the cars were fine and dandy.  So we have a mystery . . .what in the world made a really loud noise at 4:40 this morning?  Was the cat performing an acrobatic act in the den upstairs?  Possibly jumping from one piece of furniture to another?  Did the cat fall off the sofa in his sleep?  Was someone in the neighborhood "up to no good"?  Our next door neighbor leaves his pick up truck in the driveway every night and he recently forgot to lock it . . .and the next morning, someone had taken some really important stuff from his truck . . .and had already used the neighbor's credit card at Walmart - at like 2:30 in the morning!!!  The store was even able to provide our neighbor with a picture of the person from their security camera.

So what did we hear?  What went BUMP in the night?