Anticipation

I made it to bed with two minutes to spare, 11:58 pm on Christmas Eve. The day was a busy one full of last minute shopping, cleaning, a Christmas Eve service, and dinner at the in-laws. No sooner had I settled into bed than I heard a shuffling of feet at the bedroom door followed by a loud whisper. "Mom. Mom. I think Santa has been here." Diane had been in bed for at least a half-hour and was totally dead to the world, so I took over.

"Kyra, it's been Christmas for less than five minutes. Santa hasn't had time to come to our house yet. Besides, he won't come until he knows that you're asleep," I lied. It's a good thing Kyra's terrified of the dark, otherwise she would have gone straight to the family room where all of the Christmas goodies waited to be freed from their wrappings.

"Oh," she muttered, "I didn't know that."

I got up, grabbed her hand, and led her back to her bed where I tucked her back in and kissed her goodnight. I returned to my bed and drifted into a contented, though short, winter's nap.

Now Diane may have been blessed with the gift of sleeps, where she can fall asleep in a moment's notice, but I have been blessed with the gift of deep sleeps, where it may take me awhile to fall asleep, but once asleep, I stay asleep. This comes in handy for those middle of the night wake-up calls, when the girls have nightmares or need a drink of water. Diane, being the light sleeper, is pressed into action while I remain blissfully unaware. And asleep. This was the case at around 1:00 am when Kailey wandered into the room wanting to open up presents. Diane corralled her back into bed, and both girls cut us a big break by sleeping in until 7:00. All of us were better rested and able to enjoy a great Christmas day.

I hope you were able to enjoy the same. Merry Belated Christmas.