More Adventure

Speaking of adventure.

Every night for me is a kind of an adventure in itself.  I don't know why, but I feel like the best thing I can think to compare my nights to is sleeping in the hull of an old wooden merchant ship at sea.  That sounds adventurous now doesn't it?  And it is, because, you know, pirates are involved.

So I go to sleep at half past later than I should knowing full well that the six month old Captain of the Night is going to need my able bodied assistance in about thirty minutes.  Still, the waves of the sea at half past later than I should be awake rock me so gently that it hurts my stomach to keep my eyes open.

On cue not long after I've given in to sleep, the Night Captain cries herself awake going from a whimper to a wake-up-all-ye-below kind of wailing.  I have to fight my way into consciousness to answer her call.  With only a half-hour's sleep in me I stumble against the heave and ho of the boat from my quarters to hers, trying hard not to knock into corners of walls or half-closed doorways.  For a moment I consider settling the Captain back to her ease in her own room.  But my berth beckons me, and inevitably I take her there with me where I hope we can quietly watch the rest of the night together, ideally with our eyes shut. 

Last night, an hour after starting our close-eyed watch, I was startled awake by the stomp of Sister Pirate bound for our boat to steal the Captain's closed eyes and my covers.  "No, No," I fended against her hands clinging to my sheets as she pulled upward.  "Don't wake the baby.  Please don't wake the baby."  The Captain heard the tussel and skwaked at the pirate herself.

"Alright, back to bed with you missy," I told the pirate.  And that's when I noticed the Night Captain's fever.   Her cheek was hot as the bellows.  I cursed the evil doctor who must have been a pirate in disguise and had most likely given the Captain poison in her flu shot that morning.   I got out the olde tylenol grog and hoped with all the hope in me that the fever would go away.  The Captain of the Night was so distraught she would only be helped to sleep in the fore of the ship in the coziest lazy boy.

An hour later I woke up with a kink in my neck.  Fortunately there were no pirates about to take advanage of my troublesome circumstance.  I took the cooled and sleeping Captain to her cabin and retired back to my own.

Then two hours later I woke to not just one, but two pirates trying to sneak aboard the ship.  Pirate Kindergarten never navigates dark waters on his own, but insists on waking Sister Pirate for all his scallywagging.  "There will be no stealing of my sheets and bed space," I cried.  And I hustled the pirates back to their dingys in their own bay.  To ensure that they would not return to my ship, I had to board their craft and bode a while until the sea sang them into a state of unconsciousness.  An hour later I woke again in kink neck-edness and hobbled back to my own ship once more.

One would think that would be enough for one good sailor for one bad night.  But shortly after retaining my berth the Captain insisted vehemently that I come fetch her again and this time demanded milk.  I looked at the moon and saw that very shortly it would disappear.  The pirates had promised to make battle at sunlight.  So once again I brought the Night Captain to drink and sway back to sleep with me.  Not a half hour later the final pirate, just twenty minutes shy of the sun, snuck quietly onto my ship.  Little Pirate would have come aboard unnoticed but for his noisy diaper swish. 

"No, No," I barely said.  "Don't steal the Captain's sleep.  Don't take my covers."  The Little Pirate nestled in harmlessly far from the Captain.  I had no strength to toss the Little Pirate back into the drink.  I let him stay until the bells rang in the morning.

Then all sailors and pirates were on deck with an "Aaarrgghhhh" and a "Shiver me timbers," and we were off for the day.

Adventure I'm telling you.  Non-stop, relentless, adventure.