It all started about a year ago. One night at about 3am I open my eyes to see a shadowy figure staring down at me, breathing heavy, not saying a word. I scream a blood curdling scream that would make Jamie Lee Curtis jealous. In the process I manage to scare everything else that was once sleeping in the house and I realize that the heavy breather was in fact my seven year old daughter. After I grab my heart to make sure it’s still beating inside my chest, I ask her if she’s okay. “Sorry I scared you, Mommy. Can I use your bathroom?”
Sigh… Yes. Feel free to use my bathroom. Not sure why the one next to her bedroom wouldn’t suffice, but one doesn’t think to ask these questions at such witching hours. One only hopes they can fall back to sleep after having such an intense adrenaline rush.
“Thanks, Mommy. I love you.” She tucks me in, kisses me on the forehead & goes back to bed. In the morning she doesn’t remember a thing.
The next night at about 3am I’m again woken up by a heavy breathing, shadowy figure lurking just inches above my face. And once again it scared the crap out of me. “Mommy, can I use your bathroom?” she asked in her sweet little girl voice.
“You don’t have to wake me up to ask to use the bathroom, honey. Is everything okay?” She turns around & looks at me with this creepy, straight face and says in a very subdued tone, “Sorry, Mommy. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Then she slowly & calmly walks off to my bathroom. OK, this was becoming reminiscent of a bad horror flick. Should I sleep with one eye open? How long is she breathing over me before I actually wake up? Is she even awake & aware of what’s going on?
Hubby’s response: He’s glad she’s not doing it to him because “that is really freaky”. Thanks a million, babe. Glad you got my back.
The strange 3am visits continued night after night but eventually she remembered coming into my room & waking up. So we’d talk about it the next morning. I’d ask her why she doesn’t just use her own bathroom. She’d say she didn’t even think about using her bathroom. Really? Because you have to walk past it to get to my bedroom. I tried closing the bedroom door & locking it but she’d knock. UGH. So I surrendered to the fact that I would need to invest in some serious under eye concealer and work on being more patient in my sleep deprived daze.
Oddly, she doesn’t wake up at 3am or exhibit this strange ritual at anyone else’ house. She’s saving it for mama :-/
This nightly pattern continued for over a year. Felt like an eternity then one morning I realized that I slept all night long. Hallelujah! The clouds parted & the angels sang. Was the curse broken? But alas, that very night she resumed her special little visits. This time, however, I acted like I was still sleeping. Which resulted in a very prolonged staring session & heavy breathing, like two inches from my face. I could literally feel her breath. She sat there for several minutes, then quietly walked off to use my bathroom. The light was on & the door was shut for a few minutes. What the heck was she doing? She flips off the light & comes to my side of the bed to kiss me goodnight. “I love you, Mommy” she whispers then retreats to her room. She never flushed the toilet. So as soon as the coast was clear I ran to the bathroom to check. She never went potty. Did I just say “potty”???
OK this is just too weird. She must be sleep walking, right? But she remembers it the next day, but not always. She’s otherwise a normal kid. I think. OK – don’t over analyze. Kids to weird things. Why does mine have to do it in the middle of the night?
Eventually the ritual subsided dramatically. She’s down to only about once a week, but now she strokes my hair until I wake up which is still super creepy. So I’ve got that going for me. And the hubby wonders why I spend so much at the salon these days. You think these grey hairs on my head are a coincidence?? I think not.