sweet moments in the wee hours

Lea starts to cry at about 11pm, which is really unusual lately. Her sleep is not quite as reliable as it was for a while, but the disturbances have tended to come in the 4-6am range, not the late night. So it's surprising to hear from her as we are getting ready for bed. She quiets herself down after a minute or so, and I fall asleep, only to hear the same kind of pitiful crying at midnight. And then again at nearly one. At this point, I leap out of bed because the wheels have started turning, and I associate discomfort-occurring-at-regular-intervals with one thing: a stomach bug. When Lea has gotten them in the past, they've gone exactly like that-- a cycle of barfing with an hour break at first, then shorter and shorter until she passes out (actually, that's kind of how they go for me too).

So I'm really surprised to find no puddle of vomit in Lea's crib when I get down there. Just a sad little girl with a very snotty nose. "This bed!" she commands, pointing to the full-size bed right next to her crib. ("This bed!" means she wants one of us to crawl into the bed, and bring her along.) I'm happy to oblige, especially because I am so relieved to not have to deal with changing all her clothes and sheets.

"Sing a song?" she asks. "ABCs?" But she's snoring before I get to LMNOP.

It's fitful sleep, though. She is stuffed-up and not able to breathe easily. So I pick her up and stand and sway, hoping that being vertical will help her nose situation. It seems to, but that's not what feels so wonderful; it's that she's sleeping on my shoulder, which never, ever, ever happens, hasn't happened much since she was a newborn, and hardly even then. She always preferred to be on her own. Not much of a snuggler, especially when she's serious about wanting to sleep.

After a while she seems to have fallen into a very deep sleep, and I'm about to collapse so I put her back in her crib and hope hope hope she doesn't wake up.

She wakes up, but she doesn't cry. "Mama this bed? Lea... Lea's bed." She's ready to be sleeping but she doesn't want to be alone, so I crawl back into this bed and Lea stays happily in Lea's bed.

"Sing a song? Knee-en-toes?"

"Head, shoulders," I begin, but I'm so tired I just hum the rest. Very faintly, I hear Lea singing along, getting about every fourth syllable approximately right. "Eye uh eena mouf... nose. Heh... sola knee-en-toes."

It's quiet for a long time but I can tell she's not totally asleep. Sure enough, when my allergies (and aversion to dusting) give me a very badly-timed sneezing fit, Lea seems unfazed.

"Bless you, mama."

Already taken care of, kid.


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