In Dreams

I crawl in between flannel sheets toasted to the right temperature by my electric blanket. I situate the pillow just so. I grab my worn teddy bear (don't judge). I reach a hand out for Frink. We lie together holding hands in our warm bed waiting for sleep to take us.

It's perfect.

No one needs me. I can focus on much needed sleep to restore my body and revive my spirits.

It should be my favorite time of day.

But it is not.

Instead I lie with one ear open waiting for the inevitable cries of the Lion cub. Baby monitor or not, I can hear every cry or movement coming from his room downstairs. Sound travels well in our house and my ears are attuned to his calls.

It might just be a whimper, searching for his nanny blanket. Or it could be an incessant call of "Momma, Momma". I could hear his feet hit the floor as he runs to the door searching for us. I hear him fumble with the door handle, and his fists hitting the door in frustration when he realizes he cannot open it. The worst is the screams, the sounds of night terrors.

Night can be scary for a little one. They are in their most vulnerable state. Memories can surface, the loss of a parent, the loss of a home, the loss of a womb mate, the loss of everything familiar. Those memories would cause a disturbance in any of us. We would seek comfort, the knowledge that we are not alone. We would want to know that we are loved.

Because I don't know what causes the cry, I get out of bed and trudge down the stairs to comfort him. He needs his sleep. It is my job to make sure that he feels safe and secure enough to sleep. There are times when the only comfort I can give is a place in my bed.

There are those who would judge me. You are doing it wrong. He needs to learn to sleep on his own. He should cry it out. I've heard those voices, sometimes in my own head but I know they are wrong. I know what I am doing is right for right now. It won't last forever. He has only been home for eight months, he needs this. I need this.

So there are nights when he wakes multiple times and I only see three, four or five hours of sleep. Sometimes several nights in a row. Sometimes I can't remember when I last slept more than two hours in a row.

But there are nights, more common now, when he will sleep for eight or nine hours in a row. These are the nights which give me hope. These are the nights in which I can dream.

Warning Do Not Try This At Home

Have you ever been so tired that you felt if you let your head start to nod it would snap off your body, roll out the door, down the street and land in the gutter covered in leaves and dirt? Have you ever been so tired that you thought your head had already done that?

All you can think about in your headless state is sleep. Sleep is the only thing that will cure the headlessness. Nap, you need to nap.

Now what would you do if you, in your headless state, were confronted with a toddler who vehemently dislikes naps. If you shut her in her room while you nap, you know there will be no peace. You've done that before.

Would you decide that the only rational option is to have a slumber party in her room? Would your headless body belive that if you made a game out of sleeping she would sleep? If she saw you sleep that she would sleep and you would awake with your head back on your body?

It seems like such a simple idea. It has worked in the past at nighttime. Somehow laying on the floor with a blanket and pillow makes it easier for her to sleep, easier for you to sleep.

So you grab that blanket and pillow and make a big production out of arranging them on the floor. You both cuddle under the blanket and read some books. Then you lean over and kiss her before "falling asleep."

But as desperately as you want sleep, she desperately wants not to sleep. She runs around the room pulling every book off the shelf. "Read this book, momma." "Read that book, momma." Books are thrown around the room, some land on you.

But you continue to "sleep", hoping against hope that she will fall asleep too. You become a jungle gym. You are climbed on, climbed over, jumped on. It does not feel good.

There are attempts to wake you. "Momma, momma, momma" shouted in an outside voice. "Momma are you sleeping?" whispered as loudly as possible. "Momma, no sleep," whispered quietly from a mouth pressed directly into your ear.

You are covered in kisses to wake you up. You are covered in drool from the kisses.

Thwack, thwack, thwack. The sounds of the glider hitting the wall, over and over again. You make a mental note to move the glider further away from the wall to stop that from happening. But not now. You cannot show weakness now. If your eyes open or you change positions, she will have won. There will be no nap and your head will still be lying in the gutter at the end of the street.

This goes on and on. You don't know how long you've been lying there. But all of a sudden it seems quiet. Has she given up? Have she fallen asleep? Have you fallen asleep? You don't know and you don't want to check and see.

But then you hear it, "Momma, this book has a dinosaur in it." Well, duh. All your books seem to have dinos in them.

At that point, you give up. No one is sleeping today. You open your eyes and see a smiling face three inches from your own. You reach out for the book to read it, glancing at your watch. And then you notice its been an hour and a half. You could not have survived the onslaught for that long, you must have slept. She must have let you sleep.

You tentatively reach up to see if your head is attached to your body again. It is. It may be hanging by a few threads but it is there. You can go on with the day. However, you vow never to try that again.

Some Days

Some days you wake up at the crack of dawn.

Some days nothing goes right. A trip to the beach breaks down into a whinefest because there is yucky smelly seaweed along the shore. A trip to the grocery store turns into a full blown tantrum. Meal time becomes a battleground.

Some days you are so mind numbingly tired that you put your shirt on inside out. And when you finally notice and go to turn it right side out you realize that you are not in your home but on the street on the way to the park. Your brain is so hazy that you think its logical to change it in the park bathroom until the scent reminds you not to. So you don't change and you climb into bed still wearing that same inside out shirt.

Some days your toddler decides not to nap.

Some days you are so soul crushingly tired that you close the door to the bathroom so you don't have to cry in front of your toddler.

Some days your toddler is so cranky that she will throw a toy across the room and in the very next breath sob because she wants it back.

Some days you yell at your husband when he calls from the store that you sent him to because he is not here to help.

Some days your body just aches and you are asleep before your head hits the pillow.

But then some days you get to sleep in to 7:30. And you are greeted with a smile so bright that it could power the entire city for a month. Some days you know are going to be better.