Nightly ritual

Every night, before I go to sleep, I lie in bed and imagine my most worrisome worry: That one of the boys will wake up sick in the night.

I picture waking up to the sound of them crying, or to the sound of barfing, or a small hand patting my face.

The thought of being woken up in the middle of the night to a sick kid is the one thing guaranteed to make me never want to have another child and, in fact, who wants the ones I have now?

So every night I worry about that before I fall asleep.

Recently, I've added a new one.

You know, to mix things up a little bit.

After I get done worrying about the boys getting sick in the night, I start to imagine a bat flying around in my bedroom.

I have to believe that the second worry will abate in time.

There you go. Two of my greatest fears. Barf and bats.