My writing has been a bit slack for a few days. I’ve got so many projects I’m working on right now they all meld together and nothing gets done.

I keep saying I’m going to stay up late and work till midnight - or later in the quiet but it hasn’t happened yet.

K has been going to bed late. I mean really late.

Sometimes I can’t get her down and asleep until after ten and by then I’m laying down next to her, and then next thing you know it is morning!

That would be ok with me if she then slept in until ten and let me get some writing and other work done. But noooo…

She’s usually up by seven or so, ready to go for the day.

When she gets older I’ve got a plan – she can go to her room and stay there and play all night if she wants to.

But she’s in our room still – and I’m not moving her yet as her room is a long way from our room.

It’s different with the foster kids I’ve had.

They weren’t allowed to sleep in our room after eighteen months old, so it was easy – I put them in their bed and closed the door.

Using all the parenting skills I could muster, if they came out of their room I took a toy, or did a consequence or whatever and it worked ok.

But most of those children were a bit older.

I had one little girl for a weekend respite, (A RAD child, but that’s another story), who would go to bed when you told her, and not get up until you came to get her.

She was potty trained, but had learned NEVER TO LEAVE the bed unless you got her, so she’d often lay in a wet bed and cry quietly.

Luckily I remembered to get up early the weekend she stayed with us took her to the potty. I then took her to the living room and let her rest on the couch for a while.

Anything other than the bed for her. Too many bad memories.

For her the bed was horrific – she’d be beaten if she got up without permission – ever.

She was four year old.


So I’ve got a different frame of reference and it clouds my judgment with K. If she wants to get up early and go potty and not go back to bed it’s ok.

I wonder about that other little girl though and where she’s living now.