The boy appeared in our bedroom doorway rather precipitously last night around ten past one, eyes somewhat wild in the dim light. I sat bolt upright in bed. It’s astonishing how awake one can suddenly be when progeny is involved. “What is it, lovey?” I said. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“Yes,” he said in a slightly desperate, slightly muffled voice. I held my arms out. He ran around the bed and flopped onto me.

“It’s okay now,” I said, hauling him up onto the bed and rolling over with him, snuggling him in between HRH and I. “Mama and Dada are here, and you’re safe. Nothing can happen to you.”

And we slept that way for the rest of the night. I say “slept” but it was mostly heavy drowsing on our part. We’re not used to sleeping with a restless three year old. This morning HRH got up with the boy around six-thirty (the boy himself woke up around six, went and got a colouring book, and coloured quietly at the end of our bed for about twenty minutes), and I got another hour and a half of sleep. When I got up the boy told me about his dream.

“There were cracks,” he said. “But there are no cracks any more.”

“Cracks?”

“In his room,” HRH said. “When we walked into his room this morning, he looked up and said, ‘Oh, there are no cracks any more. It was just a dream.’ He told me that he’d dreamed the walls were cracking and the house was falling apart.”

I know he’s had nightmares before, but this is the first time he’s been able to articulate what he dreamed and to understand that it was just a story his mind told him while he was sleeping. It’s also the first time he’s settled down and slept when he’s come to us in bed. Usually he tosses and turns and sits up and decides it’s playtime, but then again, we’ve tried to bring him into bed in a vague attempt to encourage him to snuggle and drowse for a while, because it’s usually around five-thirty when he wakes up too early in the morning.

He’s off with the caregiver today. HRH and I have tidied the entire house (again, argh — that makes the third time in five days!) including overhauling his room. We sorted through a lot of baby toys and packed them away, and designated certain containers for certain items. There’s a box of assorted trucks and vehicles in his closet (out of sight, out of mind) and the box of baby toys and another of stuffed toys have been taken downstairs. We also thinned out his cars and Thomas stuff, putting the extras away in a storage case that’s still in the living room if he decides he needs something in particular, but at least it isn’t all out on the train table or the bookcases. And in case we haven’t mentioned it to you in person, no more Cars toys or Thomas stuff! It was nice that he had two main things people knew he loved to play with, but we’ve reached our limit of associated items. (Our limit is much lower than many other people’s, we freely admit, but still, enough is enough.) If you want to treat him to something, art supplies are big right now and get used up, so frequently need to be replaced.

HRH and I are treating ourselves to a film this afternoon: WALL*E, of course! It’s nice to know that whenever a Pixar film comes out we know it will be good, so we don’t have to worry about spending time and money and walking out of a theatre wishing the past two hours could have been more worth it. We really, really don’t see a lot of films in the theatre. I think the last movie we saw in a theatre was The Golden Compass.

Tonight is our dress rehearsal for tomorrow’s concert. I’ll be bringing the 7/8 to see how it performs in a group environment. There’s no way I’ll use it tomorrow at the concert, however, even though the luthier crossed out the ‘no public performances with the instrument on trial’ clause on the contract, of his own accord.

And finally: the crazy lady downstairs is moving out. Most of her stuff went last Thursday. Tonight is her last night here, and good thing; without all her stuff to absorb noise her TV or radio or whatever it is that she listens to awfully loudly is positively intrusive. We could hear every word of it clearly in the kitchen last night. Heck, Scarlet and Blade upstairs could probably hear it too. You have no idea how much we’re looking forward to July. Not just because the four of us get to take over that one and a half as shared office space, or because we get to unplug her ancient appliances, multiple fans and dehumidifiers and garner a greatly reduced Hydro bill, but for sheer peace of mind. We don’t need to worry any more about her falling asleep while cooking something to a burnt and fire-alarm-tripping crisp, or her letting thieves into the building, or her claiming nothing is wrong when her washing machine is leaking and ruining our stuff in storage in the garage, or allowing her jammed dryer to run all night figuring it would eventually fix itself, or her ambushing and verbally abusing us, or taking paranoid complaints to our landlord because she is convinced we’re trying to kill her. Liam will actually be able to play in his room and we’ll be able to use the kitchen in the morning without her banging on her ceiling. I have no idea what kind of place she’s moving into, but I hope she is very happy there, and I hope that her lack of comprehension concerning what life in a shared dwelling is like doesn’t negatively impact her situation.

Right. Time to tie some things up before we finish the house and head off to see the film.