Bed Time

Picture this: a dark house. Golden lamp light streams next to my bed. Husband cozy, fast asleep. Toddler in crib, snoozing, his leg haphazardly stuck out one crib slat. I peek in, watch his back gently rise and fall a few times (still), and tip toe to our room.

In bed, snuggled in, I pull out my phone and go to Pinterest. Pin a cake recipe. Hop to Twitter, check Lin-Manuel Miranda’s good night tweet. Eyes droop. I plug in my phone, and click off the lamp. Darkness falls.

Peace.

Buddy the Dog’s snores fill the room. The cat settles at the foot of the bed, waiting to stretch over my stomach.

Dreams are close, I can feel it. The hazy gray place my brain visits every night, full of soft clouds and silence before the movies start.

This is awesome.

“Momma!! MOMMA!”

The hazy gray warmth fades. I keep my eyes shut, willing the toddler to roll over, snuggle in, forget about his malady. It’s quiet again. The dog shifts. The husband breathes.
It’s safe. He’s asleep. I slowly shift my hips and –

“MOMMMMMA!”

My eyes pop open. Next to me, my husband rustles. “Is he yelling?”

“Yes,” I breathe. “Nobody move.”

“He’s probably cold.”

“I just checked. He had a blanket.”

“Maybe he’s dreaming.”

“Vividly. Of me.”

“Did you make noise?”

“DID YOU?”

Husband elbows my spine and I elbow him back like we’re prepubescent siblings in the backseat of a car. He chuckles, and its so quiet, everything’s fine, totally fine and I’ll just stay still again –

“Momma?”

His voice is so clear I can tell he’s standing now, probably at the end of the crib. His fingers, losing their chub and getting long, gripping the wood, bouncing slightly as he waits for one of us to turn on a light.

“I can go, Steph.” Husband throws blankets off, his feet on the floor. (I’m blessed, I know.)

“No, sleep,” I say. “I’ll cuddle with him and settle him back in again.”

“You sure?” Husband is already flat on his back, fading back to sleep.

Buddy the dog is hot on my heels when I rise. The cat moves into the warm space I left on the bed, his purr filling the room like a distant motorcycle on the highway.

In the hall, I push open the toddler’s door. I was right: he’s standing at the foot of his crib, bouncing in anticipation, somehow wide awake when he’d been so asleep minutes before. He grinned, his smile full of teeth. Wasn’t it all gums just yesterday? How does he have a full set already? “Momma, light!”

“No, no light, baby. Sleepy time. Should I lay down with you?”

“No.” He reaches his arms to me, and I know what he wants. I swoop him up, his forehead immediately on my shoulder. Olaf and Dobby’s stuffed hands clutched in mine (we merge fandoms at bedtime), I back to the rocking chair. The toddler assumes position, belly to belly with me, head in my elbow, lips pursed. This kid wakes in the morning like me (slowly, badly, annoyed), but he falls asleep like his dad (immediate, happy, peaceful). I cram Olaf and Dobby next to my open hip, and rock us both to sleep.

I wake, hours later, to Brett poking the top of my head. He’s on his hands and knees on our son’s floor, looking down at me. My head is resting on a stuffed, smiling bear I bought at Target right after I found out we were expecting; I’m nestled under a wide open Spiderman nylon sleeping bag. The toddler is sprawled in his crib, his hand on Olaf’s nose. Dobby is still in the chair.

“You coming back to bed?” Brett whispers. The lamp light from our room glows behind him, and his face is dark. I only know it’s him for sure because I know his voice like I know my hands.

“Yeah,” I wiggle out from under the Spiderman sleeping bag. My eyes are heavier than they’ve ever been, my neck in desperate need of cracking after that nap on a stuffed bear. Brett scoots into our room backward, still on his hands and knees and I follow, avoiding the weak spot in the floor underneath the door knob where it always squeaks.

The toddler sleeps on.

In our room, Brett pops to his feet – how is he popping at three am – and shuts the door after I crawl in. “You did it again.”

“He’ll be this little for, like, two more days, calm down,” I say, collapsing onto the bed.

Brett slips my glasses off my face and climbs over me into bed. He shuts his lamp off.
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And finally, for real, its bed time.