It happened again last night. Two am I woke to loud sobbing and poked Dom, whispering, “Someone’s crying.” That’s the deal. I get Ben when he cries but Dom gets the girls unless they’re asking for me.
However I woke up and listened as he went and found Bella wandering in the hall. She was hysterical and he couldn’t figure out what the problem was. So I got up too.
She was headed toward the office, and she kept saying something over and over but we couldn’t understand what it was. Finally Dom realized she was missing a sock and she agreed that that was why she was upset.
We returned to her room and found the sock among her blankets and restored it to her foot. She calmed down and let me tuck her in. I said a few prayers and then left.
First it was the piggy she thought she’d lost, then it was her pillow. Now her sock. I’m not sure if there’s anything left she can misplace in the middle of the night. I just wish there were some way to avoid the hysterics. I suppose it’s hard to be 3.
The Swing
by Robert Louis Stevenson
(from A Child’s Garden of Verses)
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and
Over the countryside—
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!