sweet slumber

I was planning on starting my day three hours ago. I guess you could say that I did—just not in the way I had planned. A few minutes before my alarm was scheduled to go off at 5:00, Bridget started screaming. And with her screams, along went my plans: plans to brew a pot of coffee and spend some time reading my Bible, then get an early start on working for the day—6:30, 7:00 at the latest since Al had agreed to take Bridget in to daycare. My best working hours are in the mornings, so it's hard when they're interrupted for 2-3 hour stretches by getting Bridget up, giving her warm milk, getting her to daycare, and finding/making something for myself to eat for breakfast. Between taking her to daycare and picking her up, I often end up with only 5-6 hours to work in a day—not enough.

Anyway, I digress. Bridget's screams this morning were so loud that they woke Al up too, and that's quite a feat. When I walked into her room she was standing up in her crib, another unusual occurrence. She typically climbs up on her hands and knees and then stands up when she sees me rather than standing there waiting for me to come. I don't know if she wasn't feeling well or just had a bad dream, but as I picked her up, she said, "Mommy, go!" and pointed toward her bedroom door. Just as I had suspected. She wanted me to sleep with her for the rest of the night. I took her to the family room couch—our place for the middle-of-the-night crises, since I don't want to end up with a four-year-old in my bed in a few years—and we settled in. Of course, as soon as we were comfortable under our quilt, Mya came out and wanted to go outside. She usually gets up with me in the mornings, so it was quite natural. A bit inconvenient at that moment, but natural.

Not wanting to startle Bridget, I told her I was going to ask her daddy to let Mya out. He actually heard me when I yelled for him (he's got a selective hearing problem). But instead of going back to bed after letting Mya out and back in, he snuggled in on the couch on the other side of Bridget. Mya jumped up on his other side, and soon Al and Bridget were snoring away. I dozed a tiny bit, but for most of the next two-and-a-half hours, I shivered, tried to put my head and legs in a comfortable position, and tried to ignore the fact that my arm was in the irritating almost numb, falling asleep, but having enough sensation to hurt stage (Bridget was laying on it). And although I spent a lot of time trying not to worry about the work I had (have) to do and wasn't getting done, I took a few minutes to revel in how precious this scene was. Here I had my entire family on the couch in the early hours of the morning, all snuggled under one quilt and wanting to be close to each other. Trusting that somehow I'd get stuff done—and if I didn't, it really wouldn't matter too much in the long run—I realized that this was a sweet slumber after all.