Once Creepy, Now An Old Hat

Once Creepy, Now an Old HatTwelve thirty five in the morning. It is dark. Its quiet. You lay motionless, sleeping comfortably under the blankets in your warm bed. Your spouse is next to you, gently breathing in and out. Your mind is off in an interesting dream, possibly  perusing a fish market in the nude. Whatever your dreams are, your body is resting peacefully as you slumber. In the back of your mind, you are faintly aware of the squeaking hinges of your bedroom door, but its not enough to make you snap out of your sleepy dream. No, lots of fish markets have squeeky door hinges. So you continue to breath in and out, and get those precious moments of sleep you so desperately need.
Now the depth of your slumber is challenged, because now you are conscience of someone's breath on your face. Do you smell peanut butter? Now your cheek tickles as the intruder's hair brushes against you. Your dream begins fading away, and your mind places you back into the present moment. You hope it was all part of your dream, that their was simply someone with peanut butter breath breathing on your face at the fish market. But now the sound of the intruder whispering your name and asking if he/she can sleep with you tonight banishes any idea of this being a part of your dream sequence. You would probably agree that before you became a parent, this would have been a highly disturbing event. But now, its an old hat. It is not uncommon for your child to sneak into your room at night, making a sly entrance with only the squeeking door hinges to sound any alarm in your mind. It seems the child then waits for you to return to deeper level of unconscienceness so they can really make their signature surprise attack. They lean in really close to your face, as if they are about to speak into a failing microphone, then they say in the most creepy whisper, "Mommy... Can I sleep with you?" Before you can even answer, you feel your covers being lifted off your body, letting all the cold air chill your scantily clad body. Then you feel a tiny but amazingly sharp toenail scrape the flesh of your thigh. As you fight to get the covers back on you, you now have to struggle to find a position to sleep in that will; a)not disturb your sleeping husband, and b)allow you to rest with a tiny person's bottom in your face, their feet in your crotch, and; c)not set off someone's singing teddy bear. Now the situation is all mind over matter. You squeeze your eyes shut, take a deep breath and give your best shot to get some sleep before your day actually starts. You actually begin mentally chanting to yourself, as if your hyping yourself up to relax.
"Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep." Okay, thats not working. Great. Now you have Queen's "We Will Rock You" stuck in your head. Thats fine, you can handle that. Work with it. "I will, I will, sleep, too. I will, I will, SLEEP, TOO! Queen. They were good. What was the lead singer's name? Freddy Mercury? Yeah, thats it. Mercury. Oh, I should make tuna sandwiches for lunch. Do we have bread? I think I forgot to by bread... I wish I had a bread machine. Bread machine. Washing machine. I FORGOT TO SWAP LAUNDRY! Great, now no one will have clean clothes! Who cares? We are all going to die of mercury poisoning, anyway! Wow. I am sleep deprived. Oh, right. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep." So, you see, what once would give you chills; the idea of someone entering your room in the middle of the night; now is just another night of broken sleep. Whats worse, is that after years of disturbed sleep, your mind and body are now trained to wake up even under the most relaxed, peaceful circumstances. You wake up in the wee hours of the morning. "Why aren't the kids in here? What time... three o'clock?! Wow! Wait, did I give them tylenol before they went to bed? What if I accidently gave 'em too much? What if they aren't sleeping, but are IN FACT, dead?? Did I swap laundry?"
After a while, you get yourself relaxed, "The kids are fine. Enjoy that you are sleeping without them," you tell yourself. "Two more hours of sleep. Just drift off...."
"Mommy, can I sleep with you?"