I have an embarrassing confession. I drool in my sleep. I’m sure my mother is reading this and wondering why in the world I would publicly tell people about my drool, frankly, I’m asking myself the same thing. It’s really not a confounded mystery why I’m still single, come on, I’m writing a blog about drool. But only because drool became a theme of my past 24 hours. Just bear with me.
Just last night I was sitting around with 6 of the 17 girls I’m currently living with and I asked quite randomly, “why in the world do I drool in my sleep? And why has it gotten worse since starting the Race?”
Abby (obviously a different one, I try not to speak in 3rd-person), without looking up from her game of 10s & 2s, obviously stated to me, “Ab, that means you’re getting really good REM sleep.”
Meredith chimed in saying, “yea, I think that only happens when your body is completely relaxed. I guess you’re just really tired when you sleep.”
That would make sense. Most nights and afternoon naps render hard sleep. The general life of a World Racer teaches you to sleep whenever and where ever: concrete floors, hostel bunk beds, bus seats, on top of your pack, hammocks, airport floors, etc. [All of these are actual events]
So this afternoon I was sitting on the wobble bridge that spans across the playground at Timbutini, our children’s center, and I noticed a little girl laying behind me. She was wearing a purple gingham dress with old jeans underneath and her left arm laid across her face to shield her eyes from the sun. She was dead asleep. I watched 7 or 8 kids bounce their way over her curled up body and still she didn’t budge. Noticing the imminent black eye that was bound to ensue, I reached to pick her up and pull her out of the high traffic lane. With tightly shut eyes she flailed her arms and yelled trying to push me away for a few seconds until I held her tightly and her little body fell limp under my arm. She twisted her arm around my leg and laid her face along my forearm resting on my lap.
For some reason when you hold a child your body automatically starts to sway side to side. In time with my swaying, the heel of my left palm rubbed her back left to right. That’s what Mom did to me when I fell asleep on her lap during church.
So I’m sitting with my feet dangling over the wobble bridge, periodically losing my flip flop to the little trolls digging in the dirt beneath me, and I felt the wet drip of drool land on my forearm. Another drip, another and another until it ran down and wrapped around my wrist and eventually I could feel it soak through my shirt and onto my thigh. Please excuse the gross-ness of the situation, but you know what? I didn’t really care. Se we sat there for another 45 minutes. The circulation in my left leg cut off and the drool continued, but it didn’t bother me a bit. She got no judgement from me, a fellow drooler. More importantly, this was maybe the longest uninterrupted sleep she got. Finally, let’s face it, a child falling asleep in your arms has got to be on the top 10 list of ‘things that warm your heart.’ There’s a dependance, a knowing that they feel safe.
Molly has always said about her preschool classroom back home that her first priority was to make it a safe place, a place where they knew they were loved. I totally get what she means. If I only get to spend 3 short weeks with these kids the least I want to do is provide some sort of safety, some sort of love.
Even if that means sitting in the sun for an hour and drool all down my arm.
