August 27, 2013

White Dog used to get concerned watching her brother, quiet, unassuming Oso, prepare for a nap. Our littlest man moves at a steady pace and you would never know he was tired...unless you knew to watch his eyes which get heavier and heavier until he can barely hold them open.

The need to sleep hits the Little Bear like a scene from a cartoon where the hero gets WHAPPED on the head by the sledgehammer of tiredness, staggers around like a drunkard, and then falls over on his side fast asleep. White Dog does a wicked impersonation of Oso's nap routine and gets chuckles from the White Dog Army when they think I am not watching because they know I would not approve of their having fun at the Littlest One's expense.

Oso's seriously going to sleep routine, like at bedtime, is very different but is just as abrupt. Then, eyes half shut and chin slowly forming an arc toward the floor, our boy backs around in circles, corkscrewing himself to the ground. By the time his entire body hits the carpet, he is fast asleep. And it is a deep sleep. In less than three minutes he is gently snoring...and in five he is so soundly at slumber that Nuka can walk on him without rousing him.

How wonderful is it, I tell White Dog, to be so secure and pure of conscience that sleep just wraps you in its arms so quickly and peacefully? She counters that she is not sure that she would want to sleep so soundly that even the call of nature doesn't waken you (as sometimes happens with Oso).

He has been checked by Dr. Julia and there is no medical issue; he simply is, as she says, "a little old man, with no stress or worries, who is so relaxed at sleep that he sometimes lets go." A bit of morning cleanup and a fresh towel in his bed, and Oso is refreshed and ready for a new day.