It is midnight, and I should certainly be asleep. Mike isn't home from work yet, however, and I find myself fiddling around -- reading this and that, looking up this and that. My mind feels splayed out in a thousand directions as if there are a million different thoughts my mind would like to focus on, but can't with so many clamoring for attention. I feel like I need to hold up my hand, call for silence and say, "Now. Start over. And one at a time please."
I seem to be on the verge of putting down some significant thought about kids and the feeling of contentedness I have when they are all tucked safely in bed and quiet for the night. Partly the feeling is maybe a selfish sigh of relief because I know I finally have a few hours to myself; nobody needing anything; but also it is just a feeling of good closure -- another day accomplished, my little ones all safe and sound and peaceful. I don't really know what else.
At the same time, my brain is pulling me in a totally different direction. I keep remembering a time in college when, right in the middle of a class, I became horribly and violently ill. I managed to stumble my way to the parking lot, somehow, and begin the drive home, but I felt rather like I might die. I recall thinking that I needed to just stop the car and lie on the side of the road, then realizing, in terror, that I would still feel no relief. I don't know what was wrong with me. Food poisoning? It came on so quickly and was so horrific. Somehow I made it home and to the bathroom, but then, before getting to the toilet, I began throwing up ridiculously. My younger sister Megan happened to be home at the time and came running to see what was going on. I stumbled about, clutching my stomach in terror and saying something about how I didn't know how to make it stop. Then, rather quickly again, the pain started to ebb and I was soon lying on my stomach on my parents' bed drained and shaking. Poor Megan. She must have been about 18 or 19, but she cleaned up all the throw up with out saying a word and then came and sat by me on the bed -- rubbing my back and shivering arms and saying something about reverse peristalsis and that of course my body was all out of whack and shaking after that amount of throwing up (it all seemed a perfectly understandable and soothing thing to comfort me with at the time as I was studying human biology and she was in the nursing program).
Why am I remembering that tonight? It is almost like my brain is firing off those impulses that somehow provide dreams, but I am not sleeping and letting it go about its dreaming business, so it is just shooting odd thoughts at me.
Well, as I finished typing that last paragraph, Jesse began to cry. I went up and gave him a little soothing pat, whispered shhhh, placed his blanket on again, and snuggled monkey closer to his face and he seems to be back to sleep. Still, getting up has shaken me from this delving into various pockets of thought, and has made me realize how sleepy I really am. So, I'm off to bed -- though not with out typing one small thing that tucking Jesse back in just reminded me of:
The other night Jesse was in bed, but was loudly and happily yelling/singing, "Letter BJ! Letter BJ!" over and over again. Neither Mike, nor I had the slightest clue what inspired this, but Abe was groaning about the its loudness, so Mike went up. I love to hear Mike talking to our kids in their rooms at night for some reason. First I heard, "Have you discovered a new letter? The letter BJ?" Jesse paused, then, dropping BJ in a flash and seizing upon the opportunity shouted, "Daddy!! I need a toy!" This then became his new yelling/chanting song, "I need a toy! I need a toy!" I didn't hear the rest, but it made me happy all the same. It also made me laugh when I got him from his crib this afternoon. There is a fire alarm dangling rather loosely from the ceiling in his room. I pulled it down a month ago when I was trying to stop its incessant beeping. Every time Jesse wakes, he looks up at it and tells me, "Dad can fix it." Dad, however, must be taking too long because this afternoon he looked at it and, with determination said, "Cubby can fix it." Cute little boy.
Anyway, goodnight all. I'm sure I'll read this in the morning and wonder just what I was playing at here with all this nonsense. At this hour however, it all seems perfectly sane.
1 comment:
first question...did you eat a very sugary treat before trying to go to bed? when i do that, it seems my thoughts are more like that. when i went crazy, though, it was like this except a million thoughts--like 25 radio stations trying to play at once--and then some. i like when my mind is still, although i enjoyed hearing what yours was doing when it was not.
glad your little cubby is going to fix the alarm. :) sounds like he just needs a ladder and a battery.
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