Ever since Scorch was a wee baby, he sucked at sleeping. And now that Scorch is a big kid, he still sucks at sleeping. He’s programmed to wake up at 6 am, so 99% of the time- regardless of how late he went to bed- he’s up at the crack of dawn.  That I can deal with.

What I struggle with is all his issues falling asleep. It’s all tied into his anxiety and it doesn’t make any sense to me at all- but we do try to roll with it. For a good 6 months we had to sit on his floor while he fell asleep but gradually we started moving further and further away- first to his doorway, then to the hallway, then to my doorway where he could still see me, then I could be fully in my room where he didn’t need to see me.  I was hoping that soon I could actually be in other areas of the house and not be held captive until he fell asleep.

Well, about 2 weeks ago his anxiety really started to crank up so we’ve regressed to sitting in my doorway where he can see me while he falls asleep. It’s maddening– but it’s something we have to deal with. The rule is when you go to bed, you have to lay there with your eyes and mouth shut for 5 minutes. You are only allowed to get up during those 5 minutes if you’re 1) bleeding, 2) going to puke or 3)  have a broken bone.

Tonight, Scorch wasn’t following those rules at all and my temper was thisclose to exploding as he darted out of bed time and time again. This last time was different though- he got out of bed and streaked down the hall. When he streaked back into his bed again without stopping to pester me, I got up to investigate.

Dude- what are you doing?

Wait- you saw me?!

Yup- you ran right past my room.

Aww man! I joined the running team at school and I figured that I was so fast that you wouldn’t be able to see me. Since I couldn’t sleep, I wanted to test it out.

*sigh* It’s very, very hard to be mad at a kid who thinks he’s got superhero speed, no matter how many times he gets out of bed.