{"id":12117,"date":"2012-12-14T22:10:45","date_gmt":"2012-12-15T06:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=12117"},"modified":"2012-12-14T22:10:45","modified_gmt":"2012-12-15T06:10:45","slug":"a-cry-in-the-nigh-mommy-im-scared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/a-cry-in-the-nigh-mommy-im-scared\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cry in the Night — ‘Mommy, I’m Scared’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Three-year-old
Christina at 3. Photos by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall, 1986<\/em><\/p>\n

It was the smallest of sounds. So small that even Jon, a light sleeper, didn\u2019t hear it.<\/p>\n

First a whimper, then, \u201cMommy, I\u2019m scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

I slipped out of bed, carefully folding the covers back so that I could find them later without disturbing Jon. I felt my way through the darkness to Christina\u2019s bedroom.<\/p>\n

My left eye was stuck closed. As had become my habit during six years of motherhood, I left it that way.<\/p>\n

The less awake I became during these middle-of-the-night forays to soothe a frightened, hungry or sick child, I reasoned, the more readily I would go back to sleep.<\/p>\n

These midnight interruptions can be brutal, yanking me without mercy from deepest sleep.<\/p>\n

When the babies are new, they occur two, three, five times a night. As they grow into toddlers, it settles down to once, twice, three times a week.<\/p>\n

\"Three-year-old
Asleep with her blankie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The baby books assert that American babies and children are ready to sleep through till morning and grant their parents an undisturbed night\u2019s sleep by the time they are a year or so old. Not so in our household.<\/p>\n

Peter is in kindergarten. A few weeks ago, I heard footsteps in his room. I staggered out of bed and down the hall, left eye stuck closed.<\/p>\n

He was curled up in bed with a notebook and markers, drawing a spaceship. Two weeks into kindergarten he had developed a passion for pencil and paper that was keeping him awake nights.<\/p>\n

I squinted out my right eye at Christina, standing up in her crib, red-eyed, her lower lip trembling.<\/p>\n

\u201cMommy, I\u2019m scared.”<\/p>\n

I folded my arms around her. I felt for her pillow and blankie. I planned to carry her wordlessly into our bedroom and lay her in the playpen we kept near the foot of our bed for moments like this.<\/p>\n

There she would fall asleep, soothed in the knowledge that her parents were close by. It usually worked quite nicely.<\/p>\n

If I didn\u2019t get into a conversation with Christina, if I kept that left eye closed and my mind switched off, I would have no trouble settling back to sleep.<\/p>\n

Later, when the alarm clock rattled me awake at 7 a.m. I would be reasonably rested. I would remain calm, if not cheerful, as I got two small children bathed, and snapped and zippered into school clothes for a 7:30 a.m. sharp breakfast with their father.<\/p>\n

\u201cMommy, I\u2019m scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s scaring you, Precious?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Line
“Monster,” by Christina Newhall, age 3.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a monster in my tummy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christina wrapped her arms around my neck and pressed her face against my cheek.<\/p>\n

Her skin was satiny smooth. When she was a baby, her skin was so smooth it felt wet to the touch.<\/p>\n

That liquid smooth baby was now long gone.<\/p>\n

In her place, I had a three-year-old who could talk of monsters and whose embraces were mirror images of the ones I had given her these three years \u2013 a hug, a nuzzle to the cheek, a pat on the back.<\/p>\n

I felt Christina\u2019s small hand pat-patting my back.<\/p>\n

I picked her up, pillow, blankie and all, and sat on the bed across the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn your tummy? What\u2019s the monster doing in your tummy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to eat my fingers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Barbara<\/a>
Christina and her mommy — and her brother’s left foot. Photo by Karel Howse.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I pushed my left eyelid open.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour fingers. You mean like this?\u201d<\/p>\n

I nibbled on Christina\u2019s fingers. She smiled a smile, sublime, to rival the Mona Lisa\u2019s.<\/p>\n

For the time being, I forgot my craving for sleep, my need for time to myself, my passion for ticking off the items on my to-do list.<\/p>\n

\u201cBabies are a lot of trouble,\u201d the prenatal exercise teacher had warned. \u201cThat\u2019s why God makes them cute. Otherwise, we might throw them in the garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christina and I sat wrapped in each other\u2019s arms, talking deep into the night of monsters and fingers and good things to eat.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> This is a story I wrote back in 1986. I found it tucked away in a sheaf of papers. There are no babies in the house right now — 2012 — but, yes, my left eye still sticks closed when I get up in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n

When Christina was 6 years old, she wanted to be Cinderella. Read all about it at “Scrubbing the Floor With My Daughter Cinderella.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Or, if you’d rather read about mothering an 18-year-old boy, go to “How the Selective Service Made a Man of My Son.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Three-year-old<\/a>
\nThe baby books assert that American babies and children are ready to sleep through till morning and grant their parents an undisturbed night\u2019s sleep by the time they are a year or so old. Not so in our household. A story from the Mommy Years. Read more<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[830,146,34,831,832,755,55,225,833],"class_list":["post-12117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-changing-family","tag-babies-wake-up-at-night","tag-christina","tag-dont-miss","tag-fearful-children","tag-kids-who-dont-sleep-through-the-night","tag-mommy-bloggers","tag-family-stories","tag-my-little-kids","tag-the-working-mom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}