who needs sleep?

I'll have pictures from last week up tomorrow (or thereabouts). In the meantime, here is an amusing story.

I mentioned here that we'd been having some sleep issues with Will once he sent his pacifiers off with the Paci Fairy. The problems have continued - some days he's fine, some days it takes him hours (of screaming, crying, climbing on things in his room, attempting to break his toys, etc) to fall asleep at night or before nap time. Tonight, after fighting with me and Lorne for a couple hours, I went in to tuck him in (sometimes that calms him down enough for him to sleep; sometimes it does not).

He told me he didn't want to go to sleep, so we ended up talking for a little bit. I think I've had a similar conversation with him before, but to be honest, I'm not sure. I figured it couldn't hurt.

"I don't want to go to sleep Mommy."

"I know Buddy, but you need to. You know, sometimes when I can't sleep I like to think about nice things. Thinking about things that make me happy help calm me down and then eventually my eyes just close and I fall asleep."

"I don't want to close my eyes." His brain may have been convinced he didn't want to close his eyes, but his droopy eyes were telling me something different.

"Well, how about you just try laying under your covers and thinking about something nice. You could think about going to the zoo, or Mickey Mouse, or building words with the animals on Word World, or going to Grandma Jo's house, or playing with trains, or Thomas..." I trailed off, but he didn't look convinced, so I picked up again. "Or you could think about taking a walk, or playing at the playground, or making special treats with Mommy, or reading stories with Daddy..."

He thought for a bit. "Mommy, I can't remember all of those." I love the way his mind works. I told him he didn't have to think of everything I mentioned, just one nice thing. "Can I think about baseball?"

I told him that baseball was a great thing to think about, then gave him a kiss and left his room. We haven't heard a peep out of him since. Let's hope we've turned a corner with sleep issues.