The Sun is Shining

Last night, Ruby slept through the night! Yep. I couldn't believe it myself. When Charis slept through for the first time, I thought (I'm not even kidding) she had died. Nearly hysterical, I went next door to her room to make sure she was still breathing. She was. Now, four years and two children later, sleeping through the night is cause for much rejoicing. I put Ruby down at about 10:30, she woke up at 7:30 to eat, and went back to sleep for another couple of hours. She still sleeps in bed with us, even though she is (as of today) 3 months old. I think that the fact that she is likely our last child has me cherishing this cuddly baby time more than usual. None of our other kids stayed in bed with us so long, but I am still not quite ready to let her go. Cuddling with her at night is one of my great joys.

You'd think I felt well-rested after Ruby's big feat; unfortunately, this is not so. I chalk it up to eating far too much fair food yesterday, but I woke up at about 2:30 with a horrible nightmare about Charis. It was heading in such an awful direction that I woke up from it, knowing it was a nightmare, but needing to see the reality for myself. I went up to Charis' room, crawled into bed with her and stroked her hair for a few minutes, just to reassure myself that everything as okay. I was glad to be there; I was able to witness her laughing in her sleep and saying, "It has such a big tongue!" (We had just been through a thousand animal barns that day, so she could have been talking about anything!) When I had woken up enough to replace the horrible dream images with real-life healthy sleeping child images, I went back to bed.

Just a few minutes later, though, I heard Charis at the top of the stairs. Apparently her sweet dream about funny, long-tongued animals had taken an unfortunate turn, and it scared her awake. I took her into the new room and we cuddled together for another few minutes, praying that God would take away the yucky dreams and replace them with pretty ones. Then she asked me if I would please go back to my bed. She shuffled off to hers, but not before pausing at her door and saying, "Have sweet dreams, Mama! I will pray for you!"

I did have sweet dreams, thanks to her prayers and a dose of Rolaids. When I woke at 7:30, I did the math and realized that Ruby had slept for 9 consecutive hours, which I woke Abe to tell him. At that moment, he was probably not quite as excited as I was. Hopefully, though, we've turned a corner, and this sleeping will become a habit!

And hopefully the nightmares will not.