Those Three Little Words, Spoken at Night

My little angel rarely sleeps through the night. That's okay. I've gotten used to it now. Usually it's pretty easy to get her to go back to bed, though there have been nights when she's wanted to throw an all-night party.

When she wakes at night, I normally hear her laughing and clapping her hands, or trying to sing a song from preschool, you know, happy sounds. But last night she woke me with a scream--a really loud, blood-curdling scream. I sprang from my bed with the agility of a puma. Well, okay, more like the agility of a nearly middle-aged mom of four at two a.m.. Which, of course, meant struggling with the covers and nearly falling to the floor when I tried to get out of bed. I rushed down the darkened hallway to her room to find her sitting up in her bed. Smiling.

Yep, the help-me-I'm-about-to-be-sucked-into-a-black-hole-and-eaten-by-aliens scream was nothing more than a ruse. She was playing me. I don't know if it was just to see how fast I could get to her just in case she really was being sucked into a black hole and about to be eaten by aliens, or what, but it worked. I settled her back down in bed, pulled the covers up around her chest, handed her Sneech to her, and said, "Good night." Before I could move from her bedside, she replied, "Night, night. I love you." It actually sounded more like I wuz you, but I understood her perfectly.

I honestly didn't know if I would ever hear those long yearned for words from her. And who knows if I'll ever hear them again. But I will gladly rush to her bedside at any hour just for a chance to hear her say I love you.