Bed Time

I’m actually not thankful for bed time. Truthfully, I hate bed time. It seems that as soon as we make the call to “start getting ready for bed”, no matter what the children were doing, or what kind of mood they’re in, they immediately switch on to loud, spastic clowns. They yell jokes across the hall to each other. They sock-skate to the bathroom to brush teeth and they launch clothes at hampers from top bunks and then scream whether they miss or make it.

Bedtime is like opening the cages at the zoo. It’s Kings Gone Wild time.

No, I’m not grateful for that bedtime.

I’m grateful for those times early in the morning or sometimes late at night when someone wakes up and needs mom. They are always warm and snuggly and usually sleepy enough not to be frantic about anything, even if they are scared.

They are just still and quiet and they need me-three things that rarely happen anymore.

So no matter whether I am tired in my bed or at my desk in the middle of a piece that has a deadline, I will stop what I’m doing and squeeze in next to these little bodies, no matter how small the bed, for this kind of Bed Time.I will relish every warm, snuggly second that I can, because I know these are the moments that are quickly escaping my grasp and to think about that is just too hard an alternative.