Supposed to be Sleeping

There’s an hour of night when everything is asleep, even the trees and waves and soil.  Even the mockingbirds, and they’re the frat boys of the avian world, getting territorial and screaming at all hours of day, then ratcheting it up even higher once the sun goes down.  But by four am everything is quiet.  This means The Boy, AKA Number Two, needs to wake up and start crying.  I feel for the kid, I do.  If I was really congested and confused and only two and a half feet tall and unable to speak I would surely make some noise to attract attention.  So I stumble into his room , reassure him, and lay him back in bed.  Keep in mind everything in the world is asleep including, until two minutes before, me.  I stand in his room next to the crib while he settles himself, huffs, and rolls over.  Then I sneak out of the room and he cries so I go back in.  We do this two or three times over a half hour until finally I decide to stand next to his crib until I’m sure, positively, that he’s asleep and not just peering at me with a lidded eye like Smaug on his pile of gold.  So I stand, my eyes drooping and my body swaying like an undersea plant.  And he lies comfortable and quiet in bed.  If I was having trouble sleeping I’m not sure the presence of a dark robed figure standing over me would put my mind at ease.  Especially since my addled nighttime mind might transform that figure into a clown with a craving knife and roll of duct tape.  Last night I stood for twenty minutes and finally Number Two stayed asleep, assured that I would be standing there in the morning.

About Peter Soutowood

Writer, architect, father, husband.