"Can You See Me, Mom?"

For the past few nights Paul has been sleeping under a "tent" he made on his top bunk. He has taken the fitted sheet and fastened it to the old curtain brackets at the top of the window, stretched it across the bunk and tucked the other half under the mattress. Inside his tent he has his stuffed animals and the "quilt that Mommy made me," so he is nice and cozy. Enclosed in this makeshift tent he calls out, "Can you see me, Mom?" I look and see how the brackets are tearing the sheet corners, how a little boy who is supposed to be sleeping is up past his bedtime, and how -- if he has to get up in the middle of the night -- he might get all tangled up in this tent and fall off his bunk. But then he pops his head out the peephole he has made, and I forget all that and simply see the carefree joy of my cute and happy boy.