Living with children in the house never ceases to amaze me. The goofy, funny things they say, the fantastic messes they can create in seconds, watching them play and invent new games, stories, and dances. Amazing, truly amazing.Take this morning for example.
Today is a school day. My oldest goes to preschool. I was up late last night composing the beer fairy entry that you see below. It took me a lot longer than I had planned, one: because I’m a slow thinker and, two: I’m an even slower typist. It was late when I finally got to bed, and when I arrived, my oldest had crawled into my bed and was monopolizing my side of it. I scooted her over to the middle, because I was too tired to carry her back to her own bed, and I climbed in.
I awoke this morning with that “fight or flight” alarm going off in my head. I hadn’t yet opened my eyes, but this intense pressure was pushing my Adam’s apple into applesauce. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes flew open, but I couldn’t quite make anything out because of the blood red filter that seemed to be covering them. I gasped. I choked. I tried to cough, thinking that maybe I had swallowed my bite plate that keeps me from grinding my teeth in the night. I made that startled croaking sound that a fish out of water wishes he could make as he flops back and fourth, trying in vain to bounce himself back in the water.
The red film on my eyes receded and I could see the smiling cherubic face of my first born as she gleefully crushed my windpipe. Somewhere in the ringing of my ears, I heard her call out with all the joy inside her, ”Time to wake up and go to school!”
I moved with a speed that I don’t think I could match again. I rolled her off of me and took my first awake and aware breath of the day.
The old phrase about “you don’t miss something until it’s gone” came to mind as I realized how sweet the air is here on Broad Street. After a few lung-fulls and the ringing died down in my ears, I had enough air to explain that this is not the way to wake someone up, and in no uncertain terms, was she ever to do this again.
Then I looked at the clock.
Ten-thirty.
School started a nine sharp.
Oops.
Doc
Did you lose your phone too?
ReplyDeleteLil' Miss Thang has taken to pulling a sleeper's eyelids back up and over the back of the head while cooing, "waaay-kuuh! waaay-kuuuh!"
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, I know ALL ABOUT suffocating while asleep: I have apnea. I've fine tuned the art of staving off panic while you're 100% aware you can't breathe. I still don't like it, though.
this also reminds me of an old George Carlin routine on how the little phrases we say have no real meaning, for example:
ReplyDelete"blue in the face. 'He talked until he was blue in the face.' No, actually you CAN'T talk if you're blue in the face. Blueness of the face indicates a lack of oxygen so if you're blue, you're not talking. You might be GESTURING quite a bit, but you're not talking."