It’s hard for me to get Julian to sleep. He’s nearly three and for the last year or so, I haven’t been able to get him to have a day sleep in his bed.
But…he falls asleep constantly in the car. At the moment he probably needs four to five day sleeps a week to keep his sunny personality. Without it, he is slightly tragic and woe is me. Amusing as it is for me (sometimes), he also gets extremely clumsy and can hurt himself when he’s overtired.
Another beautiful day in Perth, had us painting outside this morning, then heading to the beach for a play in the sand, onto the playground and then for a baby cino.
I thought I’d have two sleeping kids on the way back, but despite a few extra laps, I have two sets of open eyes.
A bottle at home and a nappy change finished Leo off and he is sent to bed. Julian and I play Old Maid and then we have “rest” time. Eyes closed for me, Ben 10 for him.
Leo wakes up, I go grab him and meet Julian on the stairs. He sits down dramatically on the step, starts balling and I’m speechless. He was calm and happy, seconds ago. Apparently he wants to go and see to Leo himself and it is not acceptable that he is already out of his cot.
Car time.
He is pretty smart. Sometimes its hard to coerce him into the car, he knows what could happen.
Today, genius strikes, I say to him, “Let’s go to a galaxy far, far away.”
He looks up from his stair protest, “Where?”
“We have to drive there…in our rocket.”
Excited, he bounds down the stairs and practically straps himself, into his car seat.
“Mum, where’s the galix?”
“Galaxy.”
“Where?”
“We have to find it.”
I point out a few aliens (some builders on a roof), and he laughs his head off.
Twenty minutes and forty questions about the ‘galix’ later, I’m not so excited about my idea. He’s wide awake and I’m practically asleep at the wheel. It’s also pretty stinky in our “rocket”, Leo’s new thing is pooing every time we get into the car.
The gig is up.
“Honey, there is no galaxy, you have to close your eyes and go there in your imagination.”
He is pretty grumpy about this and it takes another ten minutes for him to drop off, but we get there in the end.
Let’s hope he’s in a beautiful galaxy in his dreams.