It’s 2:00am. Or maybe 1:15. Or 3:45. I don’t really want to know, to be honest. What I do know for sure is that somewhere in my house someone made a noise, and now I’m awake. It probably wasn’t even a big noise, but it was enough to jerk my mama-mind to alertness, ready to intervene on behalf of one of my children. Sometimes I stay in bed, listening to the coughing or the tossing and turning, willing the child to be still. Sometimes I leap up and act. And sometimes I discover that what I thought was my child was actually the cat, who is simply thrilled to discover that I am now awake and ready to play.

Since having children I have become a light sleeper. But things weren’t always this way. Take, for example, the story of the night the barn burned down.

As a teenager, my mother, my sister and I lived in an old farmhouse, surrounded by unused fields and two old, out-of-use, not-so-structurally-sound barns. The largest one was readily visible from one side of our house, fronted by a chicken coop that was also old and out-of-use. I went into each of the barns once or twice, but quite honestly, I was worried they would collapse on me, so I mostly stayed out. Inside, there was graffiti on some of the interior walls, and a picked-over feel. The idea that I could happen upon someone else inside also kept me out. I was a very well-behaved teenager, and I thought it best to avoid old, decrepit barns.

You can see the barn in this photo, behind teenaged Jon:

One night in 1993 or so (it’s difficult to remember exactly when, now, and since this was pre-internet you can’t find the info online) I went to sleep as usual and woke up in the morning. When my mom saw me she said, “Did you really sleep through that last night?” Having no idea what she was talking about, I said something like (wait for it …), “What are you talking about?” She pointed out the window, and I saw it. Or, more accurately, didn’t see it. The barn had burned clear to the ground. Luckily nothing else was touched. The chicken coop remained. The trees remained. The grass remained. But all that was left where the barn had stood was a black patch of grass and some pieces of charred wood.

The story of what happened the night before starts with my sister’s friend, Heidi, who was working the late shift at a local McDonald’s. When her father was driving her home that night, she noticed a light on the hill, in the direction of our house. They rushed over, arriving at around the same time as the firetrucks. The trucks and the arrival of our visitors woke my mother and my sister, as well as much of the neighbourhood. At some point in the evening, the police arrived, and questioned my younger sister. It was all quite the brouhaha … or so I hear. Because unlike everyone else, I slept soundly through the whole thing.

A string of arsons in local abandoned buildings, including a dairy, followed. Eventually, the culprit was apprehended. Our barn was identified as his first target. And I missed it all.

Tonight, the crisis is much smaller. Still, there is no sound sleep for me. Because tonight, and every night, there is a part of me that is ever vigilant. So I am awake at an hour that I would rather be sleeping, my brain forever altered by the alchemy of motherhood. Walking the halls, wishing for rest, hoping that nothing decides to catch fire tonight.

How has your sleep changed since having children? I’m sure I’m not the only mom who wakes up far more easily than she used to!

When my daughter Hannah was a tiny baby, I insisted on dressing her in what I called “people clothes”. Think little-bitty-baby-jeans and T-shirts and dresses and overalls. She wore sleepers at night, but the rest of the time she wore outfits. While many of my mom friends declared baby clothes a total waste, I couldn’t get enough.

I dressed my tiny baby in real clothes to make a statement, both to the world and to myself. She spent the first week of her life in the NICU, where I constantly heard about how very small she was, and how even though things seemed to be going well, they could change suddenly. From the moment my water broke unexpectedly at 34 weeks pregnant, my baby was labelled as at-risk and both of us found ourselves on a crash course with high-tech medical care. And I understand why, I really do.

One-month old Hannah, wearing an outfit

All the same, once I had Hannah at home, I felt the need to get rid of all of those medical trappings that surrounded her birth and first days. I needed to remind myself, and everyone around me, that my baby was okay. She was fine. She wasn’t sick. She didn’t need to be wearing pajamas in the middle of the day. She could wear people clothes, because she was a person – a much-valued member of our family – and she was going to be all right.

I like to think that I’ve gotten over that early trauma. Seven years later, I no longer feel the need to obsessively check her breathing while she sleeps. I no longer track her weight for signs that she’s growing. And I no longer cry on her birthday, because I’m sad about what happened. I say that I’ve made my peace, and for the most part, I have. But parenting wounds leave lasting scars, and we can never really erase them from our psyches.

Jacob’s less than 24 hours old, and he’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt

Yesterday, Hannah was feeling tired and cranky and feverish when a cold developed into sinusitis. Not a big deal, and I knew it. Most infections heal on their own, and if they persist, they can be treated. And yet, as I held my sad, sick girl in my arms, and she laid her head on my shoulder, I felt silent tears come to my eyes as my body was filled with a memory. It recalled a much smaller girl nestled against me. Back then, I wasn’t so confident about her well-being. I needed to dress her in blue jeans and do everything I could to remind myself that she was real. She was mine. And she would be okay.

These memories of my babies are always there, somewhere, in the back of my mind. That time my son Jacob fell from a tall play structure. The surgery my daughter had at four and a half to correct an umbilical hernia. The sad face my son wore when he got locked in his room during his big sister’s birthday party and nobody found him for 10 (very, very long, for him) minutes because we couldn’t hear him over the gaggle of shrieking little girls. That image of my children, small and vulnerable, never really goes away.

One day, these babies of mine will grow up and leave home. They will be able to take care of themselves. But I doubt that I will ever be able to look at them without remembering how they were when they were small, and hurt, and scared. When I was their sun, moon and stars, and they needed my strength and protection. I will always remember how I dressed them in people clothes in a statement to the world. These are my babies. They will be okay. I refuse to even consider the alternative.