Sadly, they grow up. :-(

The night before last I had crawled into bed and fallen asleep for about 5 minutes before getting a call from the hospital. The operator declared that the sky was falling because "all the computers were going black". By "all" she meant two. And the solution was to reboot one, and shake the mouse on the other. Grrr. Then I couldn't go back to sleep. I was up until midnight.

Then last night I put on football - and about 30 minutes later I entered a deep coma. This slumber would not be interrupted because I was finally off of my on-call duty. I slept so hard. I had one of those deep, colorful dreams that can only exist in a state of total REM.

I dreamed that my daughter was a toddler again. A short, stubby, fat little baby. She was sitting on my lap, and I was lifting her up and letting her flail her arms around. She giggled and flopped around. And I rubbed her soft bald little head.

When I woke up I just wanted to cry. It was a nice sentiment. A throwback buried away in the back of my brain. It was so sweet and yet so sad. I think I must have gone to sleep thinking "my kids are all grown up".

I guess you never forget the way your kids were at that age.

My mother recently told me a story about my grandfather. As he went senile, he would have very vivid dreams which he could no longer separate from reality. On one visit he told her "there were two babys here ... right on the floor ... they were playing and rolling around on a blanket". In his senility he was having a flashback to his young twin sons who were long grown up and have children and grandchildren of their own.

I can only hope that when I finally go senile, that I will still have those memories buried away.