Lately, nine out of ten nights I can’t get to sleep. I just can’t seem to quiet my mind long enough to drift off. Then there is that tenth night. Nights like last night.

I had no intention of going to sleep when I did last night. I came up to put the boys to bed and nurse the baby to sleep. I left the computer and the lights on and the windows cracked to offset the oppression of a tiny over-heated house.

At 4 a.m. when I stumbled back out of bed, everything was much the same, only the fire had died and it was freezing! I had no means to build a new fire on hand. I would have had to go out and split kindling in the dark, which didn’t seem wise since I wouldn’t be able to hear Galen if he woke up. I closed all of the windows, gathered up some hats and sweater vests and headed back upstairs.

Iain and Elijah had been asleep in little beds, made of piled up blankets, on the floor. I slipped clothes and the hats and sweater vests on to then and then told them to come up into my bed with me. We covered ourselves with all of the blankets from their former bed.

The little ones went back to sleep quickly, but I laid awake for a long time. I’ve been thinking a lot about a family. I don’t really know them. I just happen to be involved in an on-line co-op with the mother. We’ve never spoken, even by email. I’ve been to her blog and seen pictures of her kids, but that’s about it. I read a little while ago, maybe last week sometime? That one of her daughters was very ill. She’s in the hospital now, with severe brain damage and they are trying to decide where to from here. The baby is younger then Galen. Such horror, as much sympathy as I feel for them and as much as I can imagine the pain they must be going through, I know that I can’t even come close to really understanding, and I can only hope that I never will.

This morning cuddled in bed, with Iain at my back and Elijah’s feet resting on my knee, I laid snuggled nose to nose with Galen smelling his milky breath and feeling his bitty toe sticking out between the gap in the snaps of his sleeper. I’m not worthy.