I actually stayed up long enough to watch real (relative term) TV last night. Immediately following American Idol, another show came on that caught my interest. The first few minutes showed a serial killer being transported to her hearing. I watched and listened intently as she mentally tortured the poor guy who was in the back with her. Before I knew it, her head was being blown off – blood pouring out from what was left of her body.
YaYa was in the room still. He too had his eyes glued to the TV. I tried ushering him out knowing his tendency for sleepless nights after seeing such scenes. But my son – the same one who could not verbalize the mummification process that was part of his school studies without bursting into tears – told me that he was not scared. And I believed him.
Of course an hour or so later, just as I was making the shift to the later stages of sleep, there was a knock on my door. Then came the desperate cry, “MOM?” My body resisted as I returned to a semi-conscious state.
There he was, my little boy, shaking with fear and afraid to sleep in his room – because the gunman might be able to blow his head off through the window. I was too exasperated to find the humor in it. I simply tried, with the limited patience that I had, to reassure him and then reminded him that he promised that he would not be scared. I should have reminded him was that he wasn’t a serial killer whom everyone wanted dead. I hadn’t even left his room before I could feel my body shifting gears – sleep stage 0 to 4 in 30 seconds.
30, 29, 28…