A Visitor in the Night

It was around 3:00 in the morning, although I didn't know it at the time; it felt like I had just closed my eyes. We had stayed up late watching the movie Prince Caspian, but even still it took me awhile to go to sleep, my mind swirling with thoughts; thoughts from the day, thoughts from the movie that evening, and thoughts from the Lord of the Rings Trilogy we had watched the week before. Finally, I fell asleep.

I was curled up on my side facing the door to our bedroom. A noise stirred me from my sleep and I opened my eyes in time to see the door opening. Naturally, I assumed it was one of my boys.

My eyes came into focus and I stared in disbelief. Coming through the doorway was not one of my sweet sons, but rather, a dwarf! Startled, I sat up quickly. Friend or foe, I did not know, but slowly and silently it approached the bed. Alarmed, I clamored to the end of the bed and tried desperately to alert Derek to the stranger in the room. To my panic and frustration, my mouth would not form the words. Like a 1 year old who can't speak but knows what she wants, I pointed and grunted at the thing coming towards me.

As the dwarf at last made it to our bed, Derek awoke, sat up, and said quickly, "What's the matter?"

Finally, the words came. I pointed and exclaimed with an exhaling breath, "There's someone here!"

In the same moment I said those words, something happened to our little visitor. He morphed right before my very eyes. He went from being very distinctly dwarf...to very distinctly Max!

Shaken and confused, I heard Derek say, "Max, you need to go back to bed, son."

Feeling embarrassed and still shaking, I quickly offered, "I'll take him."

Just as quickly, Max responded, "Daddy do it."

I can't say that I blame him. I'd want my nice calm daddy to take me back to bed too after seeing my crazy mommy act like a mad woman.

I only hope I don't have any other strange sightings in the night, or I may end up in the loony bin. Good thing my family loves me so much. I know they'd come and visit me; dwarfs and all.