Sleep? Please??

Tomorrow is going to be a run around from the beginning to the end!  One of my very lovely, very thoughtful friends called and said that she knew my weekend would look like a heap of heavy yard work after all the rain.  She said she would take Levi to play with her kids in the morning to give me the free time!  Have I said that I was blown away by that little act of kindness?  Then she is dropping him home after lunch because her kids need to have a nap after lunch.  Then I am going to Pam's baby shower and Levi is going to Ty's to play.  Then after dinner, I think we are both coming home to collapse!

Levi is going to be really tired!  We went to Sizzler tonight and came home right on bedtime.  He has been going through a 'scared at bedtime' phase.  First he was afraid of snakes and spiders under the bed.  Now that might be a little fanciful in other countries but it is a fairly legitimate fear here.  With Huntsman Spiders and the Eastern Brown snakes, it is a real part of life here, but he has had no real fear before this and nothing untoward has happened to him.  So I got the nightlight and shone it under the bed, to 'scare away' the critters. 

Then he was afraid of the 'bad dreams' that he was anticipating having after he went to sleep.  He worried that he was going to have a nightmare, so he couldn't go to sleep just in case that came true.  I am afraid he has seen me have nightmares at times but he hasn't really reported any.  In fact in the mornings he's fine, it is getting to sleep that is the problem!

Then he got 'hungry' before bed and couldn't sleep because he was too hungry, but I struggle to believe that after Sizzler, so I let him have a water bottle beside the bed.  Still he can't sleep.  So I gave him a smooth stone to stroke while he goes to sleep.  He put his fears and his hunger into the stone and sleep.

  

So here he is finally asleep!  He has the light on (which is why I can take the photo at all) and the turtle that shines stars on the roof.  He has Icy (his stuffed Border Collie) and the stone!  Here he is with the flash.  Frankly I have no idea what is the correct path.  I talked to the Child Psychologist at work and she said it was very normal to have a period to be afraid and that unfortunately, the more imaginative the child, the more numerous and varied the fears will be.  Great!  And I thought that having a good imagination was a good thing!  Ah well.  This too shall pass!

Needless to say, as it is in fact, my bed, as soon as he goes to sleep properly I remove all the accouterments and he snuggles in without difficulty.  Ah I hope this is a quick phase.