Last Night

As a member of the Area 3 Writing Project, a cohort of the National Writing Project, we're given time to write. Here was my draft from this morning. It's rough, but authentic... Last night, after a long afternoon of play with his dad, Abe came crawling into bed with me. He pulled the covers up over his chin, petted my shoulder and said “night, night mommy.” My heart melted as I looked into his innocent eyes. He smiled and rested his head back on the pillow. Then he started snoring... Abe isn’t a snorer. In fact, he’s a quiet, squirmy sleeper. I know from many nights of having him in bed with me. Abe’s dad, however, is a snorer. Often times Abe and I will be up in the morning and make fun of the loud noises coming from the bedroom or couch, where he’s sleeping and snoring. Abe’s version of the snore isn’t quite right, but he gets the basic noise down. Whenever Abe pretends to sleep the daddy snore comes out. I looked over at Abe, trying to hold my giggles back. Here was my 2.5 year old, trying to avoid sleep, curled up next to me, pretending to sleep so he wouldn’t have to leave my side. Slowly he opened his eyes, caught me looking at him and decided it was a good time to tackle mommy. He lunged at me, bear hugged my neck, and grunted with the enormous effort it took to launch himself the two feet over to me. As a strained to catch my breath he started giggling. I picked him up, set him down next to me and told him to be gentle. That didn’t last long... Instead, Abe stood up, jumped over to me and tried to catch me in a bear hug again. Luckily I caught him before he came crashing down on my chest, turned him over and dropped him into the pillow. Well, that got the giggles to turn into a raucous laughter. The dog got involved and Abe had to tackle to dog away from his mommy. I tried hiding under the covers which just made it worse. Bedtime was never going to happen. Eventually Abe settled, was walked to bed by his dad, and fell quietly asleep. Before I could close my eyes I imagined what life with Abe would be like a year from now. I doubt much would change. Abe is such a fun-loving, goofy kid. He’ll still think it’s funny to tackle mommy, tackle the dog, and avoid sleeping. Five years from now it might be different. He’ll be seven, in elementary school, and have a lot more independence. His reliance on mommy would lessen. I hope he’ll still be so excited after not seeing me for a day that he’ll want to bear hug me, I just hope he’ll grow out of jumping on me by then. Ten years from now he’ll be 12 and in middle school. Will he be too cool to even give me a hug? Will I have to ask for hugs? Will my fun-loving, goofy kid cuddle with me? I hope so. I adore him so much and want him to know that through those difficult, awkward middle school years, mommy’s still there for him. If he won’t bear hug me, maybe I’ll just need to bear hug him. Twenty years from now I hope my little boy is graduating from college. I hope after he walks across the stage, takes his diploma, he’ll search for me in the audience waiting to bear hug me again. He’ll be taller than me, wrap his arms around me, and thank me for being his mom. I’ll thank him for never straying too far away from that little boy who bear hugged me in bed just to avoid going “night night”.