Dreams

It isn’t unusual for Ethan to wake up in the middle of the night. While Emry could sleep through a tornado blasting through her room, Ethan has always been my light sleeper. So, when he woke up crying the other night I went to his room to see what was wrong.

“Mama, I don’t want to be lost!” he cried miserably.

Assuring him I would not let him be lost, I showed him he was in his room and tucked his blankets safely around him. He calmed down, popped his thumb into his mouth and settled down. He was soon fast asleep…at least, until he woke again having kicked off all his blankets.

The next night I had trouble getting to sleep, which is not uncommon these days between being sick and now being able to feel the baby moving about. I felt like I had barely dozed off before Ethan woke again crying. I waited a moment to see if it was passing (he does cry aloud and even talks in his sleep at times), but as it continued I rolled out of bed with a heavy sigh ad went to his room. It took me a moment to find him and get him unburied from his blankets.

“Mama, my zipper!”

Since he has been trying vainly the past several days to zip up his own coat, I figured he had been dreaming about that and couldn’t get it up.

“Buddy,” I said as I set him back up on his pillow, “you don’t have your jacket on. You’re in your bed in your pajamas.”

“No, Mama!” he cried “My s’ipper!”

Oh! He was talking about his slippers. Since he had taken to wearing them the past couple of days, I suspected I had put him in bed with them on and they had fallen off. I pulled off his covers to see and feel around in the dark, but while one of his socks was falling off his slippers were nowhere to be found.

“Buddy,” I said as I pulled on his sock, “you don’t need your slippers. They’re not here.”

“My s’ippers!”

I could see he wasn’t going back to sleep without the slippers, so while I tried to convince him that even I didn’t wear my slippers to bed I felt around his bed to see if I could find them. Unable to do that, I went into the hall and turned on the light so I could see. No slippers were in sight. Nor were they on the floor or in his shoe box (where they belong). I figured they were probably by the couch in the living room so I went in there and found them on the floor. Taking them back to Ethan I said, “Do you want them on?”

“No,” he replied, content now and setting among his blankets now that the slippers were found.

“Then I’ll put them in your shoe box,” I said.

“No, Mama!”

“In your bed?”

“No.”

“Well, Ethan, where do you want them?”

He pointed aimlessly in front of him and my placing them on his train table which stands opposite the foot of his bed satisfied him. So, I tucked him back in and returned to my room, tired but also a bit amused.  Oh, the things we do as parents!