Praying for Sleep

Another hectic week has passed. My mother brought the kids home Tuesday. My father drove up so he arrived on Wednesday. Son started school on Thursday but we figured there was no sense in sending Daughter back to preschool for a 2-day week so we waited until today to send her back. My father's 60th birthday was the 30th so we were able to celebrate with him for once. They left early Friday morning and Son's best friend literally since birth spent the night Friday night because as of Sunday he was moving to North Carolina with his father to start school while his mother and baby brother stay here to sell their house so they can go too. Sad times. Labor Day weekend was quiet and filled with bowling and eating out.

That brings us to 4 o'clock this morning when I awoke to the sound of Son's bedroom door opening. It sticks so you can't help but hear it. I thought he was going to the bathroom but then I noticed Mr. T wasn't next to me so when I saw Son go back to his room, I figured he was waiting.

I hear Son moving again and this time I sit all the way up and peek around to see no one is in the bathroom but Son's door is still open. So I lay myself back down and wait for Son to show up and tell me he had a nightmare or he's itchy or he's coughing a lot or he wet the bed or something. But nothing. I check his door and it's ajar but the only light is the light of his galaxy lamp I finally got hung up in his room. I fall back to sleep and am hastily awakened by my bright bedroom light overhead.

"Mommy, there's a praying mantis in the living room."

"What? Huh? Kill the light!" He does. "What are you talking about?" He's calm so I'm thinking he's just living out whatever dream he just had and he's sleepwalking a little. "I went to look for bugs and there's a praying mantis in the living room."

"You went to look for bugs?"

OK. I don't know much about these bugs but I do recall a praying mantis getting into some hotel I was at once with some other students years ago and someone saying something about never killing one of these things but getting it out is no easy fete. In our case, however, I was not quick to believe it could be the real thing. Still, what did he see? Wait a minute.

"Son, the living room has no light in it." (We haven't bought any lamps for that room yet and there's no light fixture so when it's dark outside, it's dark in there.) "How could you possibly see anything even if there were something there?"

"It's green and over by the TV."

He looks awake. He sounds awake. But I'm not convinced he can see a green, practically invisible-to-the-eye bug like a praying mantis in a dark corner like where that TV is currently located.

"Boy, it's 4 in the morning! Why on earth are you up looking for bugs?! Go back to bed!"

By now I have to get up and investigate because, well, I'm awake and you just never know. And where the heck is Mr. T, anyway? If there IS a praying mantis about, he's got a job to do. I see the kitchen door that leads downstairs is not only closed but locked. And now I'm really wondering because Mr. T is nowhere upstairs so downstairs is the only place he can be but he wouldn't close the door and lock it behind himself. I peek outside the living room window and all the cars are accounted for. I take a look over by the TV and Son has come in by now to see what I found but nothing. I open the kitchen door and Mr. T is soon upstairs wondering why so much walking is going on. Daughter has heard the commotion and now my whole house is up at 4:30 in the morning and all I can do is think of the sleep I am not getting. Mr. T finds a toy in the corner and tosses it over.

"Is this it?" He laughs. "No more cartoons for you!"

This morning I ask Son if he remembers getting up. He tells me he got up to watch TV. (So this must have been like 1 or 3 in the morning, is my guess. Time to unplug that thing.) He locked the kitchen door when he saw it was open and he said, "I smelled food so I went to see if there were any bugs." Yes, this is what he said exactly.

I don't know. Is it just me or are little boys just the oddest creatures alive?