Scenes from 3 am

(c) 2007 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

In the middle of the night last night I heard a scream. An actual "AAAAAAAAA!" sort of scream. Leaping from my bed, I realized it was Pumpkin, who was then calling for me. I stumbled to her room, where she frantically told me, "There was a mouse on my pillow, Mommy! A mouse!" Now if you've been following the House of 42 Doors, you'll know we've caught almost that many mice in the past three months; I think the count is holding at 40.

However, I really, really, really doubt that there was a mouse in her bed. She's had vivid dreams before - that her best friend from Ireland was there in her playhouse on her bed so they could play together, for example - so I'm sure that's what it was.

Regardless, she needed a bit of reassurance and calming down. So I gathered her up in my arms, told her it was just a dream, and that everything was ok. She wanted me to double-check that there was no mouse, but I'd hurried to her room without my glasses. And since I'm desperately blind without them, I needed to go back and get them.

So I told her to look out the window because earlier that night I'd noticed it had snowed and I thought she'd be pleased and distracted by that, and that she'd stop thinking about the dream mouse for a minute.

I got my glasses, returned and asked her, "What do you see?" Instead of the "Snow!" response I expected, I got, "It's some animals, Mommy."

"No, honey, that mouse was just a dream," died on my lips as I looked out her window...

... at the two deer wandering through our neighbors' yard.

We stood there for a couple of minutes, watching and talking about those deer (who had the most wonderful sense of timing). And as I shared that moment with my daughter, I no longer regretted being woken up at 3 am.