Pre-Snooze Chat

The only times that Eleanor ever gets out of bed after lights-out is when she needs to complain about how Brian and I are making too much noise and that we need to keep it down.

Hmm . . . today in the car she also complained that my music was too loud, and I wasn’t turning it down low enough.  Kids these days.

Jeffrey, on the other hand, NEVER seems to go to sleep in a prompt fashion.  We put him down, and he usually ends up talking to himself, running in and out of his room, begging for water, and essentially driving me nuts for well over an hour before conking out.

SOMETIMES it helps to have a bedside talk with him at tuck-in time.  He calls these our “chats” and looks forward to them.  It’s his chance to gab about whatever’s on his mind, and because this is Jeffrey we’re talking about, that usually means something odd.

Once he told me that the stripes on his stuffed tiger were really the letters to a “tiger alphabet” that he could use to translate tiger roars.  Then he pointed out how he had recently cut the stuffed tiger’s whiskers off.  Yes, he is turning into a real-life personification of Calvin & Hobbes.

Tonight he spent time telling me how he wanted to build a “family airplane” — “For real Mom.  We can use the engine from our car to build it.”

Then how would we drive to the grocery store? 

“Can’t we please buy a second car?”

He went on:

“It would have two floors.  The top floor for you and Daddy, and the bottom floor for the kids.”   A ladder would be used to access both levels.  I tried to get him to describe what he wanted on the kids’ floor — comfy seats?  A big snack bar, a television?  Those are the kind of things I would have fantasized about as a child.  But Jeff wasn’t interested in that.

“A snack bar is fine, but no TV, Mom.  The kids will have a big glass window and binoculars to let you and Daddy know how high in the air we are, and how fast we’re going.”

Oh, so the parents are the pilots?

“You are the one flying the plane, Mom.”

Well, bad news, kiddo.  I have intense flying sickness.  My tummy gets upset whenever I fly.

Jeffrey was indignant.  “Mommy, you need to teach your tummy a LESSON.”

Later:  “Couldn’t you please go to flight school, Mom?   Then we can fly to Grandma Newey’s house.  Pleeease?”  He repeated this plea over and over again until the chat was finished.

Why can’t I have a kid who begs for a Wii like everyone else?!? 

(Aw, shucks: because I wouldn’t have it any other way.)