Awake

I woke up, listening. Did someone call "Mom!" and that's why I woke up? Was I having a dream? I lay waiting to see if I can hear a child or recall a dream. Silence. Then rustling in Simon's bed.

Next the thud of little feet hitting the floor and padding over to the door between our rooms. It must have been shut tight because he headed for the hallway door, since that one won't latch. I lay waiting for him to come in, but he heads the other way down the hall to the staircase.

I call for him, but he keeps going. Jesse rustles at my voice. I jump out of bed and head to the staircase. Simon must think we haven't gone to bed yet. I glance at the clock on my way out, 4:55. I get to the stairs and Simon is nowhere in sight, I call to him. Jesse starts babbling. Simon comes back upstairs.

I ask Simon what is wrong. "There's something on my bed. Something crawling on me." Which I find hard to believe since he sleeps with the covers pulled up and over his head. But I say, "Maybe it was a bug or something." He agrees.

I take his hand and lead him back to his room. We get to the doorway and he pulls back, not wanting to go in. Then he snaps at me, "Turn the light on!" Of course!

The light blinds us all. Jesse buries his head back in his pillow in an effort to get away from the light. I look over Simon's bed-I see nothing, I shake out his sheet and blanket, nothing that I can see. I tell him that. He reluctantly comes to look too. He can't find anything either so he crawls back in bed and I cover him up. And Jesse too.

I turn the light off and head back to bed. Tim asked what that was about so I told him Simon thought something was crawling on him. Then I lay there hoping it wasn't a spider. Knowing it could be.

Follow up:
The next night as Tim and I were getting ready for bed we were discussing our boys as we do and we talked about this story. There was more to the story...

That morning Tim was helping Simon get up and dressed and he saw a spider on the floor at the edge of Simon's bed. He figured that's what had been crawling on Simon and he didn't want Simon to see it. At three he didn't need reinforcment that there actually was something on him. Tim quickly tried to direct Simon's attention in another direction so he wouldn't see the spider. He thought he was successful until he heard Simon say, under his breath, "There's that stupid spider!" Tim promptly killed it.