Tonight DC put away his computer and began his bedtime rituals…

• Moving his pile of 3 books  from “their spot” at “his spot” at the kitchen table, to their “bedtime spot”.
• Moving his stack of papers from his kitchen chair “spot” to their “bedtime spot”.
• Putting his DVDs away.
• Taking off his “If I Need Help” dog tags and his medical alert bracelet.
• Turning off the lights in the kitchen.

I asked him what he was doing as it was only 6:00 PM.

No reply; he just continued on with his night-time rituals.

I told him again that it was only 6 o’clock.

He was in no way tired or sick. He had just been “ice skating” and dancing around the kitchen and living room.

• He went upstairs to brush his teeth
• He came over to me and pulled down his bottom lip so I could see his brushed teeth.
• He went to his room and got his pillows.
• He went to my room and got mine and brought them downstairs.
• He got out his blankets and his iPad and got into his “spot” on the couch and was ready for bed.

I was confused by all of this. Not to say that all of this isn’t the norm every night, but not at 6 o’clock unless there is a storm.

And then it hit me….

The last time DC slept in his room and not on the couch was Christmas Eve (because… Santa). The last time before that was Christmas Eve 2018. Earlier in the day we made a deal – or so I thought. He agreed to sleep in his room tonight. We talked about it for a good long time and this time I thought I made it easier for him to accept by compromising and telling him that for now, I will only ask that he sleep in his bed tonight. He could sleep on the couch the following night, an so on. We would take it one day at a time. (My back was/is screaming for mercy, but we’ll take it slow anyway).

He agreed.

Some backstory from 2018 – The Couch; Another Round:

When DC was young, he would come into my room when there was a storm and he was afraid. This did not mean he would calm down but once he tired of repeating the same few phrases over and over again, he would finally fall asleep.

He is  27  now (chronologically) and it is no longer appropriate for him to come and sleep in my room. He does not understand this because in his mind, the storms are just as scary as they were when he was young and quite honestly, developmentally, he is just as young as he was then. There is no good way to explain this to him.

So……  now during storms or when he hears a loud noise that might be a storm or fireworks or a truck driving by or a plane flying over head…… we sleep on the couch.

I have a sectional.

He sleeps on the chaise lounge (the bottom of the L)  and I sleep on the straight part.

He was trying to get out of the agreement he made to sleep in his room.

He assumed that if he just got everything together right after dinner, ignoring my “What are you doing”s, and just got himself set up and on the couch,  I would forget about our conversation and our agreement.

You know what? It worked.

If it had been his regular time to go to sleep I would have reminded him that he agreed to sleep in his bed. Although my aching back should have reminded me; the fact that all of this was going on so early and he seemed to be on such a mission to get all of his rituals done quickly, I was too busy being confused to remember our conversation earlier in the day.

Apparently DC had not forgotten.

Well played, DC. Well played.

Tomorrow, I will be ready.

(I do have to admit that I AM a bit impressed by his well thought out plan)

*****

For anyone that might be new here: “I tell stories, most of the time; single individual stories about this or that. Some may be written with humor and some may come across as “Oh, look at the cute thing DC did or said” (he does crack me up at times) but my object is always to make people understand how his mind works, never to “make fun of him”