[Midnight] Adventures

[Adventure 33]

I'm not sure why my children think midnight or after is a good time to talk. Perhaps it's because most of the other people our small house are sleeping and it provides a level of privacy not otherwise possible. 

In the past twenty-four hours three of my children have announced a change in or addition of pronouns used to describe themselves, as gender is confusing. All announcements were made after 11PM. Nonbinary child still identifies as nonbinary and eldest still identifies as cis as far as I know, but they didn't wake me up in the middle of the night to talk and, as I'm writing this, are both still sleeping. What a journey this parenthood thing is! I feel so blessed to be these humans' mama!

We have many such middle of the night chats. A child will text me stating that if I'm still up or can't sleep at any point, to let them know and if they're still awake we can chat. I take this as an invitation for some quality one-on-one time with one of my children, and, assuming I'm awake to get the text, put a kettle on for tea. 

Mostly these conversations have to do with deep thoughts, hopes, and dreams. Sometimes they're simply opportunities for us to catch up on how each other is doing and feeling and commiserate about lack of sleep and wishing nocturnal businesses existed, so we could at least run errands and do productive things while we're wide awake. Whatever the content of discussion, I always feel blessed to have this time with my kids.