NIGHT-TIME STORIES

The other night, as I was tucking Landon in to his bed, he looked up at me, and with a slight smile and asked, “Who is Solman? Are you Solman?” He looked very interested in the answer. I unfortunately responded with little more than a puzzled stare. I asked him to repeat his question, and again the reference came out “Solman”. I wasn’t sure if his enunciation was leading to the misunderstanding, or if it was simply a new word he had created, but Landon seemed very sure that I should know who/what Solman was. Unable to answer his question, I told him he was a silly little boy, kissed his forehead and wished him a good night.

My parents reported that Landon had asked them a similar question last weekend when they were putting him to bed. And while he hasn’t asked about Solman again, the interaction has left me perplexed and the origin of Solman has entered my thoughts frequently. I think my overactive imagination coupled with too many creepy books and horror movies may be partly to blame. Regardless of the source, one recurring source of the unknown name is from some entity that is only visible to my three year old son. Now while I don’t actually believe this, it seems a very entertaining premise for a science fiction tale, maybe somewhere along the lines of the Sixth Sense. Currently the mystery continues….

Within the last week, Landon has also developed the regrettable behavior of exiting his room at night when he can’t sleep. Rhiannon and I had heard stories of other children doing this, and always prided ourselves on how well our sons went to bed at night. But alas those days now appear to be over. The past few nights Landon has left his room numerous times, with excuses ranging from being thirsty, to needing a diaper change, to not being able to sleep, one time he even emerged after completely stripping off his pajamas. Every time he exits his room, we can hear his small footsteps thundering down the hall upstairs, shortly followed by a cry for his Mom or Dad. A few of these events have happened in the wee hours of the morning, at which time he requests to sleep in our room, a request that we usually fulfill being too tired at the time to argue. He then gets in bed with us and no one is able to fall back asleep, which makes for a pretty crabby family. So far (knock on wood) Colt has been able to sleep through these late night interactions. Hopefully this behavior doesn’t persist, and hopefully it’s not related to the aforementioned Solman.