My poor little dude, my exasperating little dude, my sweet little dude is a little ball of intensity. He’s never done well with the whole winding down during sleep, and our family has always been vistied by frequent wakings and nightmares and lots of needs during the hours for which I plan to be blissfully neglectful. But we’re hardcore believers in gentle parenting and attachment parenting and nighttime parenting and generally thoughtful parenting, so we let him handle what he can and help him with the rest.

At about two and a half he slept through the night a few times. At three, a few more. Now, at three and a half he sleeps through the night reliably most nights.

But I don’t. Because this little ball of stress, this empathetic barometer of all that is going on in his world, still has vivid dreams, though we’ve never even talked about that word. And he now, instead of waking up crying and scared, yells back in his sleep.

Full sentences.

Sometimes scary. But often hilarious.

Funny even though they wake me up during hours for which I had a lot of ignoring him planned.

Recent examples, all of which seem to occur between 2am and 3:45am:

“No. No! No! I want to choose!”

“No. No. NO! There are no alligators, Frog.”

You tell ’em, buddy.