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We had some very bad weather down here the other day.  I woke with the baby at 4 am, put on the local weather station while I nursed him on the couch.  The very young weather man tracked the tornadoes and flash floods on a map, calmly telling folks in certain counties to seek shelter immediately, stay away from windows and cover themselves with pillows or mattresses.  They are so calm, they must take classes in how to stay calm and soothing.  He never named our county, which is a blessing.  I would hate to drag the kids from their beds in the middle of the night and force them to huddle in the pantry, our ‘storm shelter’.  (It is the only first floor room in the house with no windows.  We like the light.)

I held Craig and listened to the rain.  We dozed on and off for the rest of the morning – in my snippets of sleep, I dreamed of calamity.  Downed trees, children trapped in their beds by branches, rain pouring in through holes in the roof.  I dreamed of running around the backyard collecting the toys they had left out there.  I woke with a start to the older boys, sitting at the kitchen table, munching on Nutri Grain bars and complaining about the rain.  The dog was whimpering under the coffee table.  Craig was drooling all over my shirt.  All our trees were still standing, looking freshly washed, a fetching deep green in the off-color morning light.

Last night, it was Liam’s turn to have bad dreams.  He insists they were happy dreams about a friendly alligator, but he woke up screaming with terror.  These days I am sleeping upstairs in the guest bedroom/nursery while we get the baby accustomed to the crib, so I heard Liam scream and called out to him.  He crawled into bed with me and Craig – I curled an arm around each of them, soothing and hushing.  We lay like that for an hour, before it was time to get up.  My arm was prickly pins and needles when I finally roused them out of bed.

Just a few more days til I return to work.  I am uncertain how the mornings will go, undecided about when I should wake up.  I used to wake up at 5 to do yoga and get ready before the boys get up at 6.  Now we have added the complication of Craig’s morning feeding. I am considering having the 4am feeding be my daily wakeup time.  Will it be more painful to wake up for the day then, or will it hurt more to go back to sleep at 4:30 and have the alarm go off in just half an hour?  I may skip the yoga for a while, but my body really needs it.  I am all over aches and pains, shoulders, elbows, knees, and oh my lower back, all taking their sweet time getting over the pregnancy.

I’m kind of dreading that first Monday morning back.  I’ll take it easy at first . . . though I’ve gotten half a dozen emails already with anticipatory work – stuff I don’t have to do right now, but which is due within days of my return.  Apparently they cranked up the heat while I was gone, and my fellow associates are gasping for help.

I have things to do before I return, but today I am hiding from them.  I’m cuddling my little baby instead of folding laundry and making freezer meals.  It seems a better use of these precious last few drops of time.

Let’s hope that tonight we all have good sleep, pretty dreams.