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Michael's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 8/28/00 -------------------- 8/21/00 8/14/00 8/7/00 8/1/00 7/24/00 7/17/00 7/10/00 7/3/00 6/26/00 6/19/00 6/12/00 6/5/00 5/29/00 5/22/00 5/14/00 -------------------- Michael's Introduction

May 14, 2000

Dear Readers,

For my first entry, I thought I’d share with you in some detail a recent event that left me feeling a little unsettled initially but rewarded ultimately. I hope you can find some humor in my folly, camaraderie in my circumstance, and benefit from my experience. I have named this event:

The Night of the Living Terror

After an unusually hot and sticky day for early May, we felt more tired and exhausted than usual. With the evening bringing cool relief on a silent breeze, we settled into our beds as soon as the dark began its descent, welcoming it like a trustworthy friend who had been away too long. But our trust was soon betrayed.

"Aaaah! Mama! Uh-uh-uh! Help! Mama! Help me! Uh-uh, mama!" my 3-year-old son Brandon shrieked, whined, and screamed. The intense outburst startled my wife Lisa. She ran to his room and saw him twisting and turning and shaking in horror, in terror. His face was pale, his eyes white and blank like eggshells, his skin clammy, cool and moist. She went to pick him up, only to have him push her away.

She tried again; he pushed her away again, and he twisted and turned, and shook some more, all while yelling for her to help him. She finally wrapped her arms around him — the arms that normally soothe all discomfort and remove all woe — but tonight they were powerless. She carried Brandon to the living room, put on soothing classical music, rocked with him in our rocker-recliner, and spoke to him comfortingly: Nothing worked. The frightened little voice continued to whine, shriek, and scream; the scared little body continued to twist, shake, and push.

The duration and the intensity of Brandon’s pleas and cries finally grated on my eardrums enough to wake me, the rock of sleep, up. After giving my typical groggy, grouchy just-woke-from-a-deep-sleep, "Can’t you make that kid quiet down? What is going on out there?" I pulled myself out of bed and walked down the hall, realizing that something was uncomfortably different about this early morning (1:30 a.m.) interruption to my (our) sleep but still hoping that a change of arms would do the trick quickly.

I lost all hope for a speedy resolution when I saw Lisa’s drained faced and glazed eyes peering out from behind Brandon’s sweaty head. I took Brandon from Lisa and suffered the same fate as she. I sent her back to bed so she could try to get some sleep before leaving for work and did my best to comfort Brandon. After about 15 minutes of rocking gently and whispering reassuringly, Brandon calmed down. He burrowed his head into my chest, relaxed his body, and returned to normal temperature.

Fatigue crept up with me, and I drifted halfway between sleep and wakefulness, pleased with myself that I had comforted the troubled child, proud of my parenting prowess, when Brandon screamed, "Aaaah! Daddy, hug me, help me!" into my chest, shocking me out of my reverie and into full and immediate awareness that this night was not over yet.

Fortunately, Brandon wasn’t as hysterical this time. But he was spooked, the way one gets during a restless night, and the shadows, creaks and specks in our house conspired against him, creating effects and images of his archenemies the bugs everywhere. Despite this, he mostly wanted to be left alone, to lie on the floor, to wrap himself in his blanket, to wander around the room, to play with his toys and dismiss them, to make requests of me, keeping us both distracted from the chimerical creepy-crawlies. Finally, at about 3:30 a.m., exhaustion took effect and Brandon asked to be hugged and taken to mommy and daddy’s bed.

I placed his limp body next to Lisa and went back to living room, afraid to sleep, afraid to be woken by another chilling shriek, and read for the next half hour, until I was sure it was safe to fall asleep. Then I tiptoed down the hall, taking a deep breath at the door of my bedroom and snuck into bed next to him. No movement. No grunts. Nothing. I exhaled and fell asleep.

Lisa very kindly let me sleep until 7:00 a.m. She also gave me the first of my rewards of the day when she told me, "I was very impressed with your patience last night. And thanks for letting me at least try to sleep." There’s nothing better for a husband and wife’s marital relations than an impressed and pleased wife.

But the even greater reward came later. While sitting around playing with Brandon and his Lego blocks and talking with him about the night, he looked at me and said, "Daddy helped me. Daddy helped me." Yes, I guess I did. But please don’t make it a regular thing at 3:00 a.m.

So ends our first experience with a night terror in which we did just about everything wrong, according to a popular guide to raising toddlers. But please consult with an expert or a reputable source to find out what you should do. See you next week.

With faith, hope, and love,
Michael