"Te Amo!"

Last night, or early this morning, I was in a deep sleep. Normal people do this at some point after sundown. Subconsciously, I must force myself to sleep deeply in order to survive the heavy breathing, some might term snoring, emanating from my copilot.

In my state of oblivion, unaware of the digits on the nearby clock, I heard "Te Amo" bellow through the baby monitor. It continued, steadily, "Te Amo!" Pause. "Te Amo!" Pause. "Te Amo!" Pause. "Te Amo!" Pause.

I knew there was only one thing responsible for interrupting my beauty rest.



Lizzie!

Between pauses, I waited for someone else in the house to awaken and sob over the disturbance. Surely someone else would be abruptly awoken besides myself and this dumb doll! It must have been that subconscious "mommy instinct" kicking in during the wee hours.

Silence. I returned my head to the pillow and closed my eyes.

"Te Amo!" Pause. "Te Amo!"....

I don't know if I adjusted to the intermittent "Te Amo!" announcement, or my daughter rolled her head away from Lizzie's knee, the one you press to learn how to say, "I love you!" in Spanish.

By four am, my copilot's alarm-clock rang at eight minute intervals. No less than four minutes after the snooze button was pressed, Lizzie would declare, "Te Amo!" through the monitor.

Aware enough, I forced myself out of bed, trudged fifty paces down the hallway, into the dark, pink kids' bedroom and grabbed Lizzie from underneath Scooter's sweaty head. I wanted to shake that doll and scream, "Don't you know it's 4 am and everyone in their right mind is SLEEPING???"

Instead, I moved her to the toy-box, in the event she had a short-circuit. I returned to my own bed in hopes of resuming a state of REM.

Note to self: Don't EVER let a child take her Language Littles doll, or any talking doll to bed. If it happens by mistake, at least turn off the monitor.