Restless

Both my sons had a restless phase in bed at about two o'clock this morning. The younger one is two and a half, the older five.

I went in to reassure them, and get them calm again so my wife wouldn't be woken. The thing to avoid is where one of them runs into our bedroom, waking us with wild panic.

I talked to the older first, because he usually causes the most disturbance, being more vocal. We went through the "I want Mummy" - "She's fast asleep, we don't want to wake her, do we?" loop a few times.

I held his hand, and we talked about Mercedes ML320 Jeeps, concentrating on the air cooling system - an interesting mixture of his favorite subjects. "Do you think they have an extra fold up row of seats in the back that face the wrong way?" - that sort of thing.

When he had snuggled into his duvet and looked like he'd gone back to sleep I turned my attention to the younger one, who had been tossing and turning while he waited for me.

"What's wrong?"

"BIG...... ORANGE..... BALL....".

"What? Is it causing a problem?" :::thinks - he's dreaming about LaLa's ball:::

"BIG...... ORANGE..... BALL....".

"Think about a big green ball".

He calmed, rolled over and was asleep in a few seconds.

Wednesday 31st March 1999

I wrote this on Wednesday 31st March 1999 and it's been here ever since

Top of page