I woke up this morning to the sound of raucous laughter.
Sparrow must have been having a good dream because she was laughing her head off.
When a little baby is sleeping 10 inches from your head, it’s not hard to wake up when she starts laughing like that.
When I got up a couple of minutes later, Jenny was awake, too….and I mentioned to her on my way out of the room that Sparrow had woken up laughing.
“She’s been up for an hour.”
Lately, it’s been a measurement not of how well we slept….but of “how badly” we didn’t sleep.
When it’s only a little bit bad, it’s a victory.
Some nights are good…some….different from good.
I remember how terrifying it was when our two older children were littleĀ and they both slept through the night for the first time.
I think that Jenny and I thought that something must have happened….but it was just the new people sleeping like people should sleep.
You should mind your own business when you’re sleeping.
Sleeping should not be an interactive exercise.
I was thinking about Sparrow waking up laughing….or “not waking up laughing”.
When I sleep through some of this stuff, I can put my own kind of spin on things.
There’s more romance in thinking that the baby woke up laughing than in knowing that she’s been up for an hour ….screwing around and causing a commotion.
If I think about it, though, there’s not much difference in effect if I’m awake when Sparrow wakes up laughing….or if Sparrow wakes me up laughing.
Waking up to that little voice….finding so much humor in some private joke…..laughing….laughing….laughing.
That’s a good thing.
Now….it’s wonderful to sleep. It’s necessary.
It’s the thing that frames our days.
It makes it possible to go on….to make our way through the hours ahead of us.
But if I could bottle up these laughter filled, sleepless nights….if I had the foresight to do it….I’d have a pantry full of laughter filled bottles.
I have a feeling that there are going to be some quiet nights somewhere in our future.
It’s good to sleep.
I wish that I could stay awake and really take all of this in, though.
I wish I could stay awake and notice it all….and not be a cranky SOB in the morning.
How do you do that?
Sparrow didn’t wake up laughing this morning….but that’s the way I remember it.
That’s the way I’ll remember it for a while.
“happy” Martin Sexton