Day: August 23, 2004

Bedtime gone wrong

It’s late. Bedtime went perfectly until it disolved into utter catastrophe because I reacted poorly to a minor problem. Child’s problem is resolved, I’m still emotionally wrung. I’m not going to get enough sleep tonight and I still have to be a good mommy in the morning.

Today in three subjects

The first day of school went wonderfully well. I got so much stuff done today I can hardly believe it. Having structure in my day makes a huge difference. If I have all day to do one thing it won’t get done, but if I have only an hour to do 10 things, they’ll ALL get done.

Link loved his first day. He came home bright eyed and happy. Kiki came home with a homework log and a reading log. Since she’s always been very organizational this pleases her. It pleases me too, I’ll actually know what is going on rather than having to call the teacher and ask every couple of weeks like last year. No rocks and smooth sailing so far. Yay.

In some of the structured time I had today I’ve been trying to put together a report on Fandemonium. It’s harder than I thought it would be. There has to be a balance between brevity and full detail. I don’t want it too long or boring. I’m still hammering on it, then I’ll post it.

As a last thought for the evening, Gleek has developed bedtime fears in the last couple of weeks. She’s turned one of those developmental corners which significantly changes her behavior. Suddenly my girl who fearlessly went to bed in the dark doesn’t want to be left alone and needs a nightlight. Tonight she snuck out of her room, when I confronted her she told me that she wanted to sleep in my room because her room was the bad dream room the dreams waited for her in there.

I took a few minutes to talk to her and explain that the bad dreams weren’t in her room, they were in her head and she could push them out by thinking happy thoughts. This was a real revelation to her. She’d honestly thought that the bad dreams lurked in her bedroom to pounce on her when she slept. She liked knowing that she had some power over the dreams and we made a plan full of happy thoughts to crowd out bad dreams. Then I tucked her back into bed and she went to sleep.