Sweet Sleep

I’m sharing a bed with The Poo this week.

My mom has a crib and a toddler bed, both set up in her second spare room. The crib held a sleeping Poo for many moons, but it’s been six months and one Big Girl Bed since we last laid our heads down here.

I thought she could manage the toddler bed, but it’s no bigger than the crib, really. Just lower to the ground and without the rails.

Last night I put my girl to sleep in the wee white bed, only to be awakened at 3 a.m. (why is it always the three o’clock hour? Why not two? Or five) by frantic cries and the sound of scrambling limbs.

The Poo was convinced that she lost a penny in her bed and was plucking at the dime-sized dots on her quilt.

I scooped her up and plopped her into bed with me.

We woke this morning, nose to nose, her hair a sweet silky nest on her blue pillow.

“It’s mornin’ time!” she exclaimed in surprise.

This evening I bypassed the little bed and instead installed her in the double where I sleep. She fussed about going down, even though it was late, and I was gruff.

My patience lately has been wafer-thin.

I’m so tired by 8 p.m., and my body groans in protest at the load it is carrying. My nether regions are sore from the tremendous pressure of Shaggy’s 80th percentile head and my bones are weary. I pant when I climb the stairs for bath time.

When bedtime rolls around, I am running on reserves.

Tonight was no exception. After two six-hour days in a minivan with a three-year-old and my mother, and then errands until 3 p.m. today, I was wiped out.

When The Poo protested, I snapped at her.

I raised my voice and told her she was naughty.

Her pretty bottom lip trembled and she bravely fought not to cry. “No I am NOT, Mommy!” she said. “You are!”

And she was right.

My heart broke then, when I looked at her small face on the big expanse of pillow. She is so little, and so sweet and she loves me more than the moon. I am her sun and her stars. I feed her, clothe her, bath her and help her lay her worries down at the end of the day.

I am the one she runs to when she is scared, hurt or sad.

And I hurt her. I made her sad.

Still, she turned to me, her hands beseeching me even as she defiantly put me in my place.

I softened then, realizing with a thud to the solar plexus that in a few short weeks that watching her sleep will be a luxury I can’t afford with a newborn to look after.

I laid my head down next to hers. “Baby,” I whispered. “I love you. I’m so sorry.”

And I was.

She sniffled and sighed, pulling my arm across her body. I put my forehead against hers and stroked her hair. Her eyes fluttered closed and amazingly, she slept, as only the very young can.

I stayed by her side for a few minutes more, caressing her arms, bare in a summer nightie. Her lashes cast long shadows on her cheeks in the faint glow of the night light.

In a few minutes I’ll go back in the bedroom and curl up next to her, our chests rising and falling in tandem.

My girl. My baby. My first-born and my only daughter.

My heart aches when I think of the days to come, days during which she will need me and I will have to make her wait. When I will have to make her be the bigger girl.

When she will have to separate from me, in some small way at least.

But tonight, and for as many nights as I can muster until then, she and I will share our slumber, and I will breathe in the scent of her and commit these last, sweet sleeps to memory.