RDC: My Midnight Glutton

 

This week’s Red Dress Club prompt is to write about gluttony—my personal favorite of the seven deadly sins. I love food and drink and had dozens of ideas of how to take this prompt. This is the one that flowed the easiest. I think I've been getting sentimental lately...

My Midnight Glutton

            I awaken at 11:58—just before you begin to cry. It’s become so routine over the past few weeks, I’d probably get up to check your breathing if you didn’t call for me before midnight. I slip into my light blue milk-scented bathrobe and stumble down the hall to the nursery.

            Your cries become louder just as I reach the crib. You feel my arms around you and crane your head forward in search of your next meal. We sit in the old maple rocking chair and nurse. This midnight feeding has become your biggest meal of the day. No longer a newborn, you’re becoming interested in the world around you. The excitement of your big brother during daylight hours fascinates you and you’ll latch on for only a moment or two and then turn away to see what he’s doing.

            I can’t blame you. Owen is two years old and he makes lots of noise and plays with colorful toys. How can a person focus on milk when there is so much excitement going on? Don’t worry Sweet Baby James. It wasn’t that long ago that your big brother was waking me for a midnight snack. Now he can run and climb rocks and kick a soccer ball and finger paint, and blow bubbles. And it won’t be long before you will too.     

As we sit together in the dark room I marvel at how different you are from Owen as a baby. Nothing could distract him until he rolled away in sleepy contentment with milk running down his round chin. I wonder if that is a clue as to how your personalities will be like later on.

            You finish nursing and the look on your face tells me you don’t want to sleep. Sorry pal, Mommy can’t play peek-a-boo at midnight. I put you up to my shoulder and softly sing the Tommy Makem songs I can remember my dad singing to me. Half way through “The Leaving of Liverpool” you surrender to sleep. I lay you down with a silent plea that you’ll let me sleep for a few more hours. 

The boys, circa 2004

RemembeRED: Sleepy Time

            This week's memoir prompt from The Red Dress Club was: Imagine you are meeting someone for the first time. You want to tell them about yourself. Instead of reciting a laundry list of what you do or where you're from, please give us a scene from your life that best illustrates your true self. Word limit is 600. Constructive criticism is most welcome. I must admit I had a hard time choosing one scene from my life for this assignment.

Sleepy Time

            According to the unkind digital face on my bedside table, it’s almost 3am. When I first started working a nightshift it wasn’t unusual for me to have trouble falling asleep when I got home. Now two years have gone by and I can usually get to sleep within an hour or so. But tonight I had a difficult and angry customer. I replay the scene over and over again in my head—things he said, things I said, things I wish I had been clever enough to say. As I lay in bed the need for sleep becomes urgent. A mother can function on very little sleep but she can’t do without it altogether. I try to push the confrontation out of my mind. My skin should be thicker after all these years in customer service, but it isn’t. I’m angry at the customer and frustrated with myself. I take way too much to heart. So I’m still awake when James comes in the room.

            “Mommy?” he says, unable to see me in the dark room.

            “Are you okay Sweetie?” I ask.

            “I had a bad dream.”

            I pick him up. He clings to me. His skinny legs wrap around my waist and hold on tightly.  He’s shaking a little. “Let’s get into your bed,” I tell him. “We’ll cuddle up and you can tell me about your dream.” He rests his head in the curve between my shoulder and neck and I feel him begin to relax as we walk down the hall. He is four years old, but in these hours between night and day he is still my baby.

            The boys’ night-lights make the apple green walls glow softly. I put James into the lower bunk and climb in after him. There is plenty of room for both of us—neither one of us is very big. I pull the Lightning McQueen blanket over us. He still clings to me while as he tells me his dream.

            “There were monsters,” he whispers.

            “What were they doing?” I asked him.

            “They were chasing me.”

            “Maybe they just wanted to play tag with you,” I said.

            I feel James shaking again, but this time he is giggling softly, “Mommy! Monsters don’t play tag.”

            “Are you sure? Did you ask them? Maybe they were bored.”

            “I’ll ask them next time,” he says. “Mommy? Will you stay with me?”

            “Of course Honey,” I tell him. I plan to go back to my own bed after he drifts off to sleep.

            He cuddles closer and plays with my hair as he falls asleep. It is something he used to do when he was nursing. I think about our late nights together. My elderly pediatrician told me I’d miss those moments. As a sleep-deprived new mother, I didn’t believe him. I was wrong.

Sleep finally finds me in that darkened room with my baby in my arms. I comfort him. He comforts me. My frightened child has exorcised the angry customers from my mind.