If it could always be this easy

Last night I woke River up. I realized Mark had put him to bed without a sheet on the mattress. Given that we had found a live louse on his head a couple of hours earlier (and then subjected him to another chemical shampoo treatment) I want a fresh sheet every time he puts his head down.

Waking him up is a risk. If we don’t disturb him, we can usually count on 11-12 hours of uninterrupted sleep. If we do disturb him, the risk of a second wakeup increases. Perhaps something about needing to get into that REM zone?

So, as the result of getting him up to put on a sheet, he did wake up a second time last night. In the middle of the night, I heard him talking and calling for us. When I went in, he was upright in his crib.

“What are you doing, River?” I asked. “It’s very late. Can’t you see how dark it is?”

He looked around at the dark, then lay back down and curled into his usual sleeping position. I put the blanket on top of him and wished him sweet dreams. He told me he’d dream about his best friend, then silence for the rest of the night.

Hey, look kid, it’s dark, it’s late, you should be asleep. It worked? If only it was always that easy.