It’s 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday morning. It used to be so easy to sleep until 8 or 9 on Saturdays – even 7. But not this week. This week, I finally finished my dissertation, which should come as a relief. Instead, the last push threw off my whole Circadian thing and since I turned the actual dissertation into my committee, I’ve woken up at 5 a.m., 6:15 a.m., and now 5:20 a.m. for the past three mornings. But at least I get to blog again, right?
It hasn’t all been bad, though. The reason I’m awake it because Liz came to bed after having a nightmare. I usually let her hang out a little bit before taking her back to bed. This morning, I thought she was asleep when I picked her up. (By the way, she was lucky to be picked up – Kipper came to bed two hours earlier and when I went to pick him up, I actually pushed him out of bed.)
As I took her down the hall, back to sleep under the Christmas tree, she asked for her unicorn. See, her parents are the default comforters when she has a nightmare. But when her parents bring her back to bed – which we invariably do sooner than she’d like – she asks for her stuffed unicorn, who (she claims) will come and protect her in her dreams and nightmares when she needs.
I sure am glad she has that unicorn. Not so much to protect her from her nightmares – her mom and I can do that just fine. But I think that unicorn has become something of a symbol to me of how simple it is to find comfort and protection from the nightmares of life, if we will only believe.
Peace and Comfort
1 Unicorn
43:50 Alma
