9:30 pm
A blood-curdling scream comes from Sarah’s room, followed by repeated screams of MAMA MAMA MAMA.
I run down the stairs, into Sarah’s room, asking her what’s wrong. She’s sitting straight up in bed. She stares at me blankly.
“I need my pencil sharpened.”
Sarah is not awake. She’s having a dream. As I hear John storming up the stairs from the basement, I ask Sarah for the pencil, and then pretend to sharpen the imaginary pencil. With sound effects.
John enters the room as I hand the “pencil” back to Sarah. “Thank you, Mama”.
“Let me know if you need anything else, GeGe.”
Sarah falls over into her pillow. The REM cycle has ended.
***
One night last summer, Sarah got very angry at her very large stuffed tiger, in her sleep. She was yelling at it, as she got out of her bed with it, marched to the living room, and stuffed the tiger into a toy bucket. Then marched back indignantly to her bed to collapse on the pillows.
Bad mom that I am, I have pictures of the tiger stuffed in the bucket. She remembers nothing. I expect tomorrow she will not remember that I sharpened a pencil for her.
Kids can be so entertaining. Especially if you play along.