They seemed so happy together

Last night it was a trial to get Drew to go to bed. Usually, we hop into his bed and chat for a few minutes about his day, and then I ask him whose turn it is to close their eyes first and he decides it’s his turn and closes his eyes. (Clever, clever! See how I did that? It’s a competition, and yet I ALWAYS win even though it’s NEVER my turn to go first! :P ) I close my eyes, too, and he thrashes around for a few minutes and might try to talk to me but I feign sleep and within 10 or 15 minutes he’s drifted off to dreamland. Oh, sure, I have fallen asleep, too, but that happens whenever I stop moving. Sort of like a shark. Feeding frenzies included.

Last night, though, thanks to a very late afternoon nap courtesy of dad being in charge while I grocery shopped, Drew just wasn’t having it at bedtime. I closed my eyes and lay silent for a good 30 minutes, and he thrashed around and talked to no one and made shadow puppets and poked my eyes. “Mommy! Mama! Wake UP!”

I finally open my eyes and ask him what was going on.

“Why can’t you calm down and sleep, buddy? What’s the deal? It’s bedtime!”
“Mama, my toes are fighting. They are keeping me awake.”
“Your toes are fighting?”
“Yeah, mommy. They need to work it out.”
“Well, then, what can we do?”

What we can do, apparently, is take off the socks, for starters. And then I can lay down and enjoy the crazy person ramblings of an almost 3 year old helping his toes work out their differences. It was a complex situation, from what I could tell, having to do with the fact that some toes are smaller and some are bigger, and none of their “twin toes” are on the same feet. The big toes do all right, seeing as they meet up face to face when he puts his feet together, but the little piggies are small and lonely, way out there on the ends. And sometimes Big Toe doesn’t WANT to go the market (whoa, boy, do I know where you are coming from, Big Guy!), and that is a problem, too. I’d say it took about 10 minutes for peace to reign in ToeLand once again. And once it did, true to his word, Drew drifted off to sleep.

Wonder if Obama needs any help with that whole Middle East thing. I know someone who can give him a hand.