Sleep-throws

I've never seen death-throws but I imagine them to be quieter and calmer than the sleep-throws I witnessed my son battle tonight.  While there were punctuated moments of silence, these were engulfed in wreathing and thrashing-about moments in which my son's body flailed and his head flopped against the otherwise peaceful organic mattress and causing the humanely harvested, sustainable forest certified, wooden slats that surround his head to be subjected to the only violent blows they had ever experienced since being gently felled on to a bed of lushness on a happy and sunny hillside in Oregon.  This hour long cacophonic process of falling to sleep was peppered with another occasional type of quiet moment here and there in which Enzo would look, quite naturally in the fading light, straight into my eyes with a neutralness that stated clearly that it was perfectly normal that he lie there briefly in a buddha-like sense of self possession and peace only a fraction of a moment after, and moments before, mimicking the sounds and motions of the tortured souls within the fantasized gates of eternal suffering that reside in certain dark imaginations.  Perfectly natural, indeed.  Amidst the noise and thrashing about sleep did sneak up unnoticed.  I am always amazed how it does this.  I have noticed before in the more typical off-to-sleep times how Enzo's singing and chatting with himself will suddenly be replaced with quiet, sleep having snuck up on him mid-story.  On occasion, like tonight, sleep will sneak up on everyone.  It is past midnight now when Tami and I have woken with Ana's requests for attention to find that we are dressed, in bed, and the lights are on in other rooms.  Enzo remains peaceful as an angel, body growing, memories forming, synapses exercising during his hard-earned sleep and dreaming of wooden blocks, zerberts, and laughing with his Mama while being held upside down by her.