Bedtime Tales

Cole (our youngest) is the best sleeper EVER! We read a book, sing a song, say a prayer, he takes one deep breath, and he is out. This is true for about 355 days out of the year. That leaves about ten days each year that we get surprised.

This past Monday night was one of those nights. He told me he was thinking about bad dreams. I don't really know if he knows what this means. Do three -almost four- year olds conceptualize the idea of dreaming? I am not sure. He did wake up Monday morning a little tearful which is unlike him, so I guess he could have had a bad dream and was remembering it as he tried to fall asleep that night. Who knows?!

Anyway, I digress from the point of this post.

One of the (what turned out to be) many times he came out from his room, he said "Rachel's face is different". My take on this is he isn't used to seeing her face in the dark with the nightlight and the shadows are making her look funny.

I explain this briefly and encourage him to go bed and try to go to sleep.

As the shadows were not the problem, he continued to try to relate to me what the trouble really was. He couldn't seem to come up with the word smell apparently, because he made a loud, exaggerated sniffing noise and said again, "Rachel's face is different".

I clarify that her face smells different which he confirms. In my own mind I am laughing that he apparently has been smelling her face instead of falling asleep like normal. I do proceed to the bedroom and notice there is a distinct fruity smell in the air. It is coming from her bed. It turns out she had put some fruity chapstick on when she went to the bathroom.

On a future trip into the room, I noticed that the smell is still REALLY strong. It turns out she had not only put some on, but she had smuggled it into her bed. She had it up too far, it got all smashed in the lid, and it was all messy and very fragrant!

I removed the chapstick from the bed. I assured Cole the problem was taken care of. He, unfortunately, didn't fall asleep until after 9:30 that night.