Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Going to Sleep

               Last night, I babysat my friend's four-year-old. We had a lot of fun playing with puppets, reading books, and making crafts.

               She wanted to show me how fast she could run, and she picked out some socks to put on: "Look at these penguin socks and these Hallowe'en socks! Which should I wear?" she asked. I said, "How can we decide, they're both so pretty? I know, just wear one of each!" She was incredulous and marveled at how silly I was. So I'm officially sillier than a four-year-old, but she did take my advice.



Girl wearing two differently-colored socks
Proof of silliness

               I chased her around with my dragon puppet Rodney yelling "RAWR"!  and then I hid the puppets in the house so she could play hide and seek with them. In short, she was very tired by bedtime. Then she didn't want to go to sleep; apparently, she never likes it. I can understand that. If you're having fun, why do you have to go to sleep? Well, she did eventually follow directions and close her eyes (only after telling Rodney that he didn't have to go to sleep if he wasn't sleepy).





Illustration of the puppet Rodney
Rodney the Dragon

              Then this morning I gave my sister a ride home from work. She works nights and goes to sleep right after work usually. But this morning she was very excited and said she wanted us to go shopping! This sounded like fun, so I started driving us the mall. As I drove, I told her about the little girl who didn't want to go to bed. I was almost done with my story and almost turning in to the mall parking lot when I looked over to see what Halle was doing -- leaned back in the passenger seat completely asleep with her mouth wide open! That story must be pretty boring...  I stayed quiet and drove her to her home instead. She barely stirred all the way home but woke up with a start when I made the right-hand turn into her apartment parking lot and said, "I thought we were going to Urban Outfitters?" I told her she should go right to bed and to call me when she wakes up.  She agreed.

            The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose.