Bedtime

The kids are in bed and sleeping by 10pm each night, sometimes earlier. And we sleep much later than that.

Sometimes, I will go into their room and have a peek at what kind of funny position they have adopted. Someone normally has a fist in a face, or a foot in near a butt. Quite often they are all lying upside down and in horizontal positions spanning across multiple mattresses.

Their faces look so calm and peaceful – no longer the manic crazy children running around, driving us mad an hour before. In their minds, dazzling arrays of magical journeys are playing out, each one having his or her own vision of far off and unknown wonderful worlds. I put my head next to each one, trying to listen into the soundtrack that is playing, or feel the buzz of their busy CPUs working away at millions of megahertz rendering the sights and sounds, smells and textures. But I hear nothing but the soft breathing of a little child, and the faint sounds of a heart that is thumping a little quicker than mine.

I wish I could sit by their side the whole night to just watch them. I really wish I could.