Opinion : Reading my mind: Duck!

There's one thing I love, and it's babysitting a special little two year old. Well, most of the time. Actually, 99.9% of the time. It's that remaining teeny tiny of a percentage that brings me out of dead sleep with a scream, or the case last night being smashed in the nose. But those are even eclipsed by the times that I'm awoken with giggles in her sleep.

When you have a little one on the other half of the bed, and your job is to make sure to keep her in one piece until mom is done working, you sleep with one eye and ear open. Most of the time things go great. We snuggle in for a good night's sleep. Grandma tells really long stories, and we say a little prayer and konk out.

We awaken for our morning routine of "what do you want for breakfast?" This went better before I started asking. Before asking, it was eggs of some sort. Now it's, "Ummmm I want yogurt! No, I want a cheese stick! No, I want an apple!" I think this is why she loves "Bread and Jam for Frances" so much. Frances doesn't want eggs either.

A few weeks ago we were sleeping and dreaming of who knows what when she sat up. I immediately followed suit, making sure she wasn't escaping. Before I sat all the way up, she had grabbed the blanket and threw herself backward covering herself up and smashing my nose with the back of her head. "Ouch!" I said. She settled in with a grunt and began snoring. My eyes watered, I was sure that my nose was broken. But, it didn't bleed and I didn't feel anything out of place on my nose, so I gingerly got comfortable and fell back to sleep, assuming I'd at least have a black eye out of the deal.

The sun rose and there was no black eyes. And the normally happy little girl came growling out of the bedroom. "I don't WANT a diaper!" I assumed at this point that she probably has a sore spot on her head and has absolutely no idea why. Finally wrangling the curly-headed, usually happy kiddo, we changed the diaper, snuggled in and watched our morning episode of The Chicks on the Right which always makes her laugh, and at the end we "bring it in," for our hug and she chimes in, "Have a good day!"

It's been a few weeks after this event and my nose no longer hurts I'm happy to report. There were no shiners to explain. From now on we'll put a larger pillow between us. Aw, who am I kidding? We will continue to fall asleep with our stories and prayer and little curls tickling my nose. If she sits up with a scream, I'll assume she's cold and searching for the blanket again. I'll give her until the count of five for the curls to return to tickle my nose. If they don't THEN I'll sit up, if I remember...