Scary Dreams

Last night was a first.

Up until now, Matthew had never, I repeat NEVER, ever, come into our room in the middle of the night. Not when he was first learning how to sleep in a big boy bed, not when his airway was being mostly blocked by tonsils and adenoids, not ever.

His big brother is a different story. That kid's going to be wandering into our room in the middle of the night and begging to sleep on our floor when he's thirty. I'm sure of it.

Last night, my youngest boy had a scary dream. He traipsed into my room, stood on my side of the bed and asked if he could get in. We have a rule about that sort of thing. It starts with ABSOLUTELY and ends with NOT. But that's because his brother would spaghetti arm octopus his way all around the bed until his father and I were no longer even in it if we'd let him. And it would happen every night. This, like I said, was a first.

Also, I was barely awake and kind of thought I was dreaming the entire thing. Dream Mommy is so much nicer than Fully Awake Mommy. I pulled the boy up onto my torso. I was stretched out on my back and he nestled his head down onto my chest, his legs finding spaces to nest between and around mine. He instantly fell back asleep.

So did I, apparently, because, for the next two hours, I proceeded to have dreams where my diaphragm was compromised and I found myself unable to fully inhale. I'd wake up enough to realize that this was happening in real life but not enough to do anything about it. After a couple hours of inadequate air intake, I woke up to find him awake and staring at me. "Do you want to sleep on my floor?" I asked, hoping beyond all measure that the answer would be yes.

He nodded, climbed out of bed, laid on top of a long, decorative pillow, and fell right back to sleep. I covered him with a fuzzy green blanket and promptly resumed slumber.

This morning I asked him what his scary dream was about. It involved robots with heads that popped off. This was, I guess, terrifying. "Doesn't that sound so super scary?" he asked me.

"Not to me," I said honestly. "To me that just sounds funny."