Having writer's block for The Beginning Series gave me the idea of writing this somehow. So enjoy!
I was woken up by the sound of someone opening the bedroom door. At first I just ignored it. Peter probably just got up to go to the bathroom... except Peter was still in bed.
I sat up, squinted my eyes and made out of the form of my three-year-old son. He was standing there, looking back at me. "Marco?" I asked. "What's wrong, honey?"
Marco ran over to the bed, somehow not tripping over the blanket he was carrying with him. He climbed up, crawled over to me and plopped down into my lap. "I can't sleep, Mommy," he told me.
"Did you have a bad dream?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, lucky for you that I know just the cure for scary dreams," I told him.
I got off the bed and reached down to pick up Marco. He held his arms open for me, then wrapped his arms around my neck. Peter moved around from the movement I made when I stood up, but other than that he didn't seem to notice that I was leaving the room.
I carried my son downstairs and into the kitchen. I sat him on the counter and walked over to the freezer. "What was the dream about?" I asked him.
"I was in my room and there was a monster and it attacked me and tried to hurt us. You and Daddy and Jake were all gone and the monster was going to eat me. Then I woke up and I thought it was in my room, but he wasn't. It was just my stuff." Once he was finished telling me his dream he stuck his thumb into his mouth. At the same moment he realized what I got out of the freezer. "Ice cream!" he cheered.
"Shhh." I held my finger up to my mouth. "It's our secret, okay? We can't let Daddy know."
"How come?" he asked.
"Because if we do," I said, pausing to take two bowls out of the cupboard. "Dad will eat the ice cream every time he wakes up, too."
"No!" Marco cried. "Daddy will eat all of it!"
I tried not to laugh as I put two scoops of ice cream into each bowl. I handed Marco his ice cream and a spoon, then started to eat my ice cream. Chocolate, mine and Marco's favourite. "Not if he doesn't know we're eating it."
The two of us were silent as we ate. It seemed that the only time Marco wasn't talking was when he was eating. By the time the two of us were done eating, Marco's face was covered in chocolate ice cream. There was more ice cream on his face then there was in his stomach, probably.
After I put the ice cream away and washed the dishes (I really did have to keep this a secret from Peter. He would eat all the ice cream while Marco and I were sleeping), Marco and I headed upstairs to the bathroom. After washing his face and brushing his teeth, we went back into my bedroom. Marco didn't really want to sleep in there - he didn't want to be a baby, he said - but his blanket was still in there.
Once we finally got to his room I got him into bed and tucked him in. "Good night," I said, kissing his forehead. "I love you."
"I love you, too, Mommy," he said back.
"Night night."
"Night night," he repeated.
I stood up and headed towards the door. Right before I was about to turn off the light and close the door, I heard Marco speak again.
"Hey, Mommy?" he asked. "Do you and Daddy have bad dreams, too?"
"Sometimes," I admitted. "But then you get bigger they don't seem as scary."
"Why?"
"Well, once you get big you realize that the monsters in your dreams aren't real. That they can't hurt you."
I was wrong.