So, I just thought I'd compile a small list of the ways in which I have found my five year old son sleeping, in the last few months...this boy must have wonderful adventures once I kiss him good night and close the door:

A) With a giant stuffed snake wrapped around his head--unclear if it was protecting or eating him.

B) With his hands tucked angelically under his cheek, but a full-size toy rifle balanced carefully across his body--perhaps to fend off the snake?

C) With his head nestled inside a large Lego bucket--my personal favorite, and one for which I really can't come up with an explanation.

And one night I think I quashed a burgeoning adventure (bad Mommy, bad Mommy) by making him take off an ever-so-snazzy, silver-grey Kenneth Cole dressy vest, 2 sizes too small (which looked entirely fabulous over his bug jammies) before he climbed into bed ...who knows what he could have done with that one.

A few months later... Shoved his mattress out from the wall about a foot, and squeezed into the space he'd created...when I came in and took a picture of him, he roused enough to sit up and gabble incensed nonsense at me (which was both funny and unnerving) and flung himself back down.The next night he improved upon this idea , shoving the mattress completely off the bed, and was sleeping on the boxsprings when I found him. Do you know how uncomfortable a boxspring is?? The next day he told me his mattress was there for anyone who might have wanted to visit in the night. I thought it was awfully considerate, even as I commanded him never to do it again.


Meanwhile, his baby sister (aged 3) is clearly feeling a little inspired by big brother's boldness, and has staged a few nighttime discoveries of her own, although it tends to run toward cleaning her room when we think she's asleep (which prompts me to wonder whose child she is, as she's clearly not mine), sleeping dead center in the middle of the floor sans any blankets or pillows, and inexplicably draping small blankets over random objects.

Can I just say I don't remember having nearly this much fun when the lights went out when I was a little girl. Well, except that one time I rigged a booby trap in my room to catch a criminal....but that's for another time.