Norah’s monitor woke me up at 1:30 a.m. this morning. She was crying.
This, of course, used to be a regular occurrence. Not so much anymore, though, unless she’s sick, cold, or scared.
Since my lovely insomniac wife (bless her heart) was dead to the world, coked out on Ambien, I stumbled bleary-eyed and boxer-bedecked into my daughter’s bedroom to find out what the fuck is going on.
“I had a bad dream,” she whimpered.
I’m a sucker for cute, cuddly, scared little girls. We snuggled a while on the bed while I tried to keep my eyes open and mumbled what I hoped were comforting platitudes that make sense to a frightened four year old. I can get a little… incoherent when exhausted.
“Papa,” she said finally, “we left Bob-Bop downstairs.” Bob-Bop being her grey stuffed brontosaurus that she LOVES whenever he doesn’t scare the crap out of her. Usually Bob-Bop is banned to her “Ammimal House” for crimes against girl-hood too heinous to mention. But her bed is a virtual stuffed zoological society, piled high with all manner of critters – most of them pink – that vie for her attention and affection. And once she gloms onto one, very little can dissuade her from insisting on its presence, especially once she realizes that it’s missing.
Even Bob-Bop.
The truth is, I had no idea where the hell Bob-Bop was, but wasn’t going to tear the downstairs apart looking for him at 1:30 in the morning. So I lied.
“Bob-Bop’s in Levi’s room, honey. We don’t want to wake Levi, so we’ll leave him there.”
“But what if he gets LOST?”
Now keep in mind, usually her bad dreams involve dragons, being lost, or scared and lost dragons. This time, she wouldn’t talk about it, so I internally assumed she dreamed about Dick Cheney. (Hey, he scares me.) But transference of her fears to her stuffed animals is a common Norah psychological technique. It just rarely works at 1:30 a.m. I tried to reassure her that Bob-Bop would be fine, that Levi will watch over him, that Levi’s sock monkey and blue puppy and bear would keep him company until morning. “Besides,” I said, reaching for a random critter from the crypt-like piles of plushies around me, “Leopard will snuggle with you. And so will…” (*reach*) “…Neigh-Neigh. And so will…” (*reach*) “…Pink Pig.” (Naming animals is not really one of her strong suits.)
“Okay, Papa.” She lay down with Neigh-Neigh under one arm and Pink Pig under the other, surrounded by a protective barrier of her “ammimals” that would, surely, beat the shit out of any scared, lost dragons that would happen across her bed.
I kissed her goodnight and went back to bed.
This morning, I woke up 20 minutes after my alarm, showered, dressed and made coffee in my usual zombie-like stupor. There was Bob-Bop, lying in the clean laundry basket. I considered sneaking him up to Levi’s room, but reconsidered. I put him instead on the dining room table, a silent grey sentry, black thread smile pointed towards the stairs, waiting for his pink, blonde, pajamaed owner to come down in the morning, the very first thing she’d see.
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So that’s why she told me Bob Bop was in Levi’s room this morning.
I’d like to take this to all the Apple Farm folks who work with their own dreams!
Okay so one of my friends who lives from the depths and follows dreams read this post and sent me this comment: This is so damn sweet and funny that it brings tears to my eyes. She is a lucky little girl to have such a bright attentive Papa.
Do you think Bob Bop would be helpful to Gampy on his waking early AM moments? Maybe we could ask Norah if we could rent Bob Bop.
BTW how do you remember these moments so that you can retell them the next day?