School gets out at 1:00. When I'm not working, I pick the girls up, bring them home, make lunch. Then Bela wanders off by herself to build castles out of blocks, to color rainbows, to write out all of the names of her friends, carefully, letter by letter.
Mae, on the other hand, still naps. The only way to insure she gets her midday rest, though, is for me to lie down with her. She grabs her blankie, curls up next to me in my bed, nuzzles her head in my chest, and falls asleep.
Most days, she falls asleep within minutes and I gently extract myself from her and tip toe out and join Bela. Sometimes, I fall under the heavy spell of the afternoon sun + white noise of the fan + soft bed + Mae's breathing and we nap together.
If Mae doesn't nap she's a wreck come bedtime. But when she naps, she's not ready to fall asleep at 8:00. Bela crashes immediately, worn out from her day. But Mae.... well, Mae has a secret life which plays itself out between the hours of 8 and 10:30 in the p.m., a life whose details we are hardly privy to.
What do we know about Mae's secret life? Well first there are the noises. We hear her chit chat and her sing song, which means her dolls and animals are engaged in some serious conversation. Then, there are the books in the closet. We leave their closet light on to illuminate the bedroom at night and to keep monsters at bay. There is ample room in there, bright light, and a small foot stool. Often I find between 3 and 9 books piled on the closet floor in the morning.
We find all manner of nighttime entertainment in her bed come morning: her piggy bank, Bela's piggy bank, pennies and quarters everywhere, miniature horses, mermaids, band aids.
We do know that Mae broke her collar bone because she was sneaking into Bela's bed late at night to steal stuffed animals. Now that she's all better, we find her up there often, usually engaged in undressing and re-dressing Bela's dolls, exchanging the animals on her bed for the ones on Bela's.
When I caught her up there last night, she walked right over Bela's body to get to me so I could lift her down. Bela didn't wake up. I said:
--Mae, what have you been up to? Why aren't you sleeping?
She responded:
--I made a mess. And I cleaned it up. Will you help me find my piggy? See? I put him away.
--Mae, you have to go to sleep now, ok?
--Ok. But it's taking too long. Look what I found!
She led me to her closet, where she proceeded to show me how she had gone through Bela's sock drawer and picked out all the pairs she wanted to inherit, all her favorites. I walked her back to her bed, gave that cute face a big fat kiss, and told her she had to close her eyes and go to sleep.
She sighed a sigh of resignation, grabbed her blankie and put her thumb in her mouth. I'm starting to get the feeling that these secret late night moments - where she calls the shots and doesn't have to share with Bela--are her favorite moments of the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment