The clock read 4:32 am.

“Moooooommmmmyyyyyy,” came the pitiful cry.  I quickly got up and went to Tia’s room.  She is my sleeper.  She is the child who could sleep through any illness, the one who once vomited then went back to sleep in it.

Gross.

So when she cries out in the middle of the night, there’s usually a good reason for it.  Usually.

“What’s wrong,” I asked, kneeling by her bed.  Her eyes were closed.  She was asleep.  Like a cruel joke she roused me from my bed then fell back into a deep slumber.  I stumbled back to bed.

The clock read 4:36 and I felt the heat of little eyes staring at me from the bedside.  “Tia, what’s wrong, honey?” I mumbled.

“I had a bad dream about tornados,” she wimpered.  We can all thank her big brother for that phobia.  I got up and walked her back to her room and put her back in bed.  “Think about happy things,” I told her.  “Think of the beach and ice cream and gymnastics.”

I fell back into my bed a minute later.

The clock read 4:40.

“Moooom?”  Her call floated down the hallway like bad alarm that won’t go off.  I waited.  Maybe she would think I was asleep and she’d give up.  All rationality had left my weary body at that point.  “Moooom?” 

I sat up and hissed, “Tia, hush!”

A few minutes later.  “Moooom?”  With less sympathy and a modicum more frustration, I flung the covers off my body and briskly walked to her room.

“Tia!  What?!”

“I sneezed,” she said, her tiny face peeking out from under the mountain of blankets.

I did not respond.  I held onto my own advice of When you don’t have something nice to say, Ssshhh! Say nothing.

That was two nights ago.  Last night the same situation played itself out only she complained of leg and head pain (I believe she’s growing) and she woke up crying because she had a nightmare that Sloan was scratching her.

So if you run into me today and notice the bags under my eyes, or think you can make out Route 66 in the red lines criss crossing my eyeballs, now you’ll know why.  I have slept all night in more than two weeks.

T-Minus 13 days until we leave for Florida.  I may not sleep anymore down there, but at least I’ll get a little tan to mask the bags.  That’s my happy dream…