My Dear Little Insomniac

Getting Arowyn to go to sleep is still a chore even though she is seven she still has such a hard time falling asleep a lot of times I think it’s a ADHD thing that it is just so hard to get her to wind down so my evenings usually turn into a waiting game of watching TV in my room or reading a book and waiting and checking on her about every 45 minutes until she is finally asleep. On a usual night this usually happens sometime between 10:30 and 12:30 and yes this is even when she is going to bed at 8:30 or 9:00 at night. Unfortunately some nights she waits me out though and I can’t keep myself awake long enough for her to fall asleep. This is obviously what happened the other night because this morning I woke up at 4:50 to Chamberlin heading out for one of his early morning flights with Nieman’s. When Chamberlin opened the bedroom door here Arowyn comes down the hallway saying “What are you doing up Daddy I haven’t even went to sleep yet.” In my sleepy haze I thought that was kind of weird but didn’t have enough brain power to think it through other than to tell Cham to have her lay down in my room so I would know that she wasn’t wandering around the house after I had went back to sleep. Anyway when I did get up a couple of hours later and fortunately by this time Arowyn was sound asleep, I walk into my living room where blankets and pillows are laid out on the floor into a makeshift bed and I think well that’s what she must have been doing when Cham left, trying to have a sleepover all by herself in the living room. But as I walk into the kitchen I realize that this wasn’t the half of it. As I take in my kitchen table I realize what those smudges on my dear little daughters face were when I checked on my little sleepy head this morning. Because spread out on the kitchen table I find her acrylic painting art kit and easel and they weren’t just sitting out but had clearly been used. When Arowyn woke up I asked her what she had done last night when everyone else went to sleep. Her explanation was “I couldn’t sleep so I painted!” She said this like it was just the thing to do when you can’t sleep. And the look on her face when she said it was that of “silly mommy.” It’s a good thing we homeschool because she still got the 8 hours of sleep she needed and her little project last night still counts towards her school today.

The kitchen table this morning

My little artist when she finally woke up. 

Notice the paint smudges on her cheek and on her shirt.