4:30 a.m. That’s when I woke up this morning. Actually, that’s the time Sam decided to wake up this morning. This has been happening for the past couple of days — something in the early morning half-light scares him, or one of the strange creaking noises of the house wakes him and he needs help falling back to sleep for a few more hours. OK, one more hour. But I’ll take what I can get.
I was sitting next to him this morning on the rocking chair’s ottoman and watched him squirm around under his blankets until he found a good spot: Face up, his arms raised next to his head. His room had a strange glow from snow outside, and with his features softened by the darkness, he looked exactly like he did when he was first born. You just can’t be mad at a face like that, even if it is 4:30 a.m. on a Saturday. Some mornings when I am up with him like this, I am amazed at the clarity of my thoughts and emotions. All seems right with the world. Whatever annoyances I had the day before, whatever bad dreams disturbed my sleep — they are all gone. At 4:30 a.m. I am always content, happy, peaceful. Maybe it’s from being jerked out of sleep so suddenly by Sam’s cry — my brain doesn’t have time to catch up and remember where I left off the day before. It’s just a dark room, a snoring baby, and my empty brain.
Now it’s 9:30 and we’ve already had breakfast, showered, the washing machine is running, there’s food on the stove, the shopping list for later today is ready. The boys are at music class and I get to enjoy the quiet house for an hour. All is right with the world.
Grown Ups & Downs 
Lovely. I could just see you there watching Sam. At those times maybe it is not so much that your brain is empty but that your heart is full.
Watching is sleeping child is one of my favorite activities (although 4:30 is not the preferred time). I love the way you described it and how content and happy you are at that moment. The time passage was slow, but the pace picked up in the next paragraph, life moves at warp speed. You’ve caught it and held it, for a moment.
I love your description of your sleeping child – how he looks like he did when he was born. I wonder if the innocence of sleep does that for all of us – some little inkling in our features of the child within, maybe forgotten…
It’s remarkable that you are so positive a out those early morning wake-ups. When 4:30 is the wake-up time around here I’m not so clear headed. Good for you (& Sam).
It was nice to remember those times through your writing. Thank you. I remember clearly the first reaction on my end of “you’ve got to be kidding”, but followed later, sometimes much later, that of peace with a sleeping child.