Nights have been pretty quiet lately. Sure, it might take a while to actually get him to go to sleep, but once Miles goes down there isn’t much that will truly wake him up anymore. We might hear him talking or crying out during the night, but this typically subsides quickly as he grapples with whatever dream he’s having.
Last night, we were jarred awake when Miles started screaming and crying. We took the standard “Give him a second” approach, trying to wait him out. But after at least a minute of full-on crying, we started hearing banging against his door as he called for Mommy.
Jaclyn groggily left bed to see what had happened and try to coax him back to sleep. I’m not sure how long the latter took, but the crying did subside almost immediately.*
This morning, Miles and I debriefed as we climbed into the car.
“So,” I said, “are you doing okay this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“You had kind of a rough night though, it sounded like.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened last night?” I asked. “Were you scared, or did you just miss Mommy?”
“Hm,” Miles said, collecting his thoughts. “I saw the shadows from the books.”
Through the eyes of a child the real world becomes embellished and fanciful, with the potential for adventure and danger around every corner, even in the most mundane of circumstances. I do think it’s pretty amazing, however, that Miles can self-reflect on, analyze, and rationalize his initial impressions to add a more real-world context to the shadowy terrors brought on by the night-time.
That being said, I look forward to Miles continuing to jump at shadows for years to come.
*NOTE: After talking about the incident with Jaclyn, she further clarified that she stayed in bed with Miles for a while. After he had fallen asleep again, he suddenly spoke. “The ghost over there went away.”
The Perils (& Pride) of Paternity 