One Perfect Moment {Sleeping Beauty} | Life

One Perfect Moment is all about those moments, big or small, that make you wish they'd last forever. Those moments you want to stop in time, when everything feels perfect, even for just a split-second. Snapshots of the mind. Moments to treasure forever.

I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth before bed. She'd woken up three times already. Once for a drink of water. Once to go to the toilet. A third time because she was scared of the moth and was sure it had bitten her finger.



We've had a bit of a plague of moths the last week or two. Every year there is an explosion of the furry caterpillar population, and this inevitably leads a few weeks later to an influx of moths, everywhere. This year hasn't been any worse than others, but there is one big difference.

Punky is aware of them. And afraid of them.

It doesn't matter that they are relatively small, mostly only active at night, and positively can't hurt her. She fears them.

After she woke the third time in tears, scared that a moth was trying to get her, I stood beside her bed, smoothing her hair and telling her that there were no moths in her room. I reassured her that they couldn't get her, they couldn't bite. That I would not let a single moth get near her.

But it wasn't enough.

As I finished brushing my teeth I heard her screaming for me, shouting that she was scared and calling out "Mummy!".

I rushed from the bathroom in to the mostly dark house. She wasn't in her bed. She was in the pitch dark lounge room, searching for me. The absolute terror in her voice made me heart thump. I grabbed her up and held her tightly. She was shaking.

I knew there was no way she would get back in to her own bed after this. I asked her if she wanted to sleep in my room with me. She nodded with tear-filled eyes.

I set her up on Dave's side of the bed (he was on night shift) and got her tucked in. I told her I had to go and close the door to the bathroom and that I would be right back. She looked so frightened and small, laying there in my bed.

I quickly got rid of the couple of moths hanging out on the walls of the bathroom and then jumped in to bed with her. She had calmed down by this stage but she was still scared. She told me that the moth had bitten her finger and was trying to get her. I tried to explain that the moths were too little to bite her and they couldn't get her.  I promised her that I had gotten rid of them all. That I wouldn't let a single moth go anywhere near her.

When I turned off my bedside lamp she started panicking again because she couldn't see me. I told her I was there, rubbed her arm, and then got up and put on the hall light so she could see me lying beside her. I rubbed her back and tried to help her relax again.

She asked me if I could give her 'little tickles'. She loves it when I brush my fingers lightly up and down her arm. I lay beside her in the semi-dark, brushing my fingers on her baby-soft skin, listening to her breathing and fighting sleep. Every now and then she would open her eyes to make sure I was still there.

She's a restless sleeper at the best of times, and even in sleep she fidgets and tosses and turns. At around 5am I heard her roll off the bed (thank goodness I'd laid a bed of pillows beside the bed just in case) and she didn't even wake up. I got up and lifted her back in, tucked Blankey in beside her and crawled back over to my side.

I got about 3 hours of sleep on Saturday night. I've never been a big co-sleeper, even when the girls were little, but some nights, despite the tossing and turning, the little legs kicking and arms smacking me in the face, there's something comforting about it.

In the act of providing security for her, I find peace in myself.

The sleep deprivation is worth every second of it.

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