Hallie was always a nightmare to get to sleep. The only thing that seemed to make her nod off was having her tiny hand wrapped around one of my fingers. This resulted in many a night, lying on the floor with my arm poking through the slats of her cot, losing all sensation in my arm, whilst she gripped a finger tight. I had to use all the manual dexterity of a bomb disposal expert to extricate my finger from her vice like grip without waking her. Any sudden movements and the inner spirit level that was attached to her trigger switch would be activated and I would suffer an explosion of needles and pins in my arm for another few hours.
She stayed like that even as a toddler. She'd fall asleep in her own bed, then wake up in the middle of the night, crying, wanting to come in beside us. It would possibly be frowned upon by so-called childcare experts but exhaustion and not wanting to wake up Aden resulted in her being in with us, her little hand wrapped around my finger once again.
When I was working late, I would get home in the early hours and the first thing I would do in the darkness of our bedroom was check to see if Hallie was in there. If she was, I'd crawl into the tiny area that Hallie and Laura had afforded me in our super king-sized bed, she would automatically sense that I was now there, and in her half-sleep a little hand would reach out, take my hand and begin to sleep peacefully.
Little did I know that sometime in the near future these roles would be reversed, and it would be me that needed the comfort of her little warm hand in mine to help me get to sleep. It is wonderfully reassuring to know that when I wake up in the middle of the night, I know that they are there. And in the morning, when I wake, I can bask in their warmth and cherish their peaceful, serene faces until they wake up with a sleepy smile and a kiss.
There is no better feeling. We will always be holding hands. And there is nothing that will ever break that bond.
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