Another 3am start

It’s three am in the morning and my daughter has decided that she has slept enough for the night. She runs around upstairs squealing at the top of her lungs, every now and again collasping in fits of giggles. I try to hush her and bring her back to bed but she is too excitable. She wakes up like this at least once a week, and usually on the morning before I go back to work so I’m always bleary eyed by ten pm Sunday night as I’m stamping passports. Resigned to the fact that I’m not going to get anymore sleep I take her downstairs worried that she is going to wake the neighbours. Making her a warm drink of milk I settle her down on the couch and put on an old Baby Einstein video hoping to settle her. If anything it made her more excited. I look at the video cover, Baby Neptune. She just loves water. Oh well. Making myself a cup of tea I use this opportunity to do some guilt free writing. My mind wonders to the teenage boy and single dad who live across the road from me. The boy has Asperger’s and often I hear him talking excitedly to his dad into the wee hours of the morning. I feel comforted by this, knowing I’m not the only parent awake with their autistic child at this time of night. One of my friend’s son was prescribed heart medication to get him to sleep at all. For a while they gave up and just made sure everything was locked up securely until one night they woke to him warming up a can of baked beans in the microwave. He was only three. Other parents were horrified to hear this. My response was, “Gee, he must be bright to be able to use the mircrowave.” It is now four am and Elizabeth’s momentum has slowed a little. I wonder if I should try to get her back to bed. My gaze strays to a short story I’ve been writing and I shrug my shoulders, she could always collapse on the couch if she gets too tired.

Joy!

This morning for a change I woke up before my daughter. As it was still so early I laid quietly beside her and just watched her little face. She seemed so at peace. As the minutes ticked by a sweet smile tugged at her lips. I would have loved to know what she was dreaming about. All too soon she began to stir. Opening her beautiful blue eyes, she spied me lying beside her. With a yell of delight she jumped up and then snuggled into me giggling before scampering off the bed to play with her toys. I imagined what life would be like if I woke up bursting with such joy each morning. To be a child again ...