Misbehaving Sam

Sam has been in the habit of getting out of bed after bedtime again. After a few months of goodness, he has decided enough with that, and is back in top form. A few weeks ago I tried the tape on the floor trick in which I put three pieces of tape on the floor by Sam's door, representing different degrees of openness (or closedness). For the first infraction, Sam's door is closed slightly to the first piece of tape, and so on, until the door is closed. Well, we've made it to closed almost every night and when we were talking about it, he said he didn't mind having it closed to "1" or "2" (that's what he said), so we decided to remove a piece of tape.

He is still getting up and making up various "needs". For example, two nights ago he decided that Jason and I needed to sleep with some of his "friends" (stuffed animals), so he came into our room and placed a few stuffed animals with their heads on our pillows and bodies under the covers. I warned him his door was going to "1", but he was insistent that we sleep with his friends. So he told me he was going to finish up and then I could move his door to "1". Arrrrrgh. Anyway, in the morning he was quite disappointed to see that Jason had moved his friends to his bedside stand, rather than sleeping "with" the friends all night. Jason tried to explain to Sam that the friends were kicking and much too squirmy but he was still unhappy. I had left my friends in the upper corner of the bed, which was also unacceptable. Sam got into bed next to me and  laid down and showed me exactly how I should hold the friends (right on my chest, with the feet toward the face).

So tonight, after night after night of Sam getting out of bed, Jason and I were watching Top Gear and at about 8:30, a half hour after Sam went to bed, I commented that Sam didn't get out of bed tonight. Well, there was a particularly funny part in which one of the guys was dressed as an astronaut and Jason and I were laughing about it. Then we heard another, very quiet laugh. And there was Sam, sitting on the landing watching Top Gear too. Jason got him back upstairs and moved his door to "1". Clearly we need to find another system. Now, if you're wondering if Matthew is going to get equal discussion regarding misbehaving, come back tomorrow (or the next day) for a post about our latest attempt at having Matthew in church with us (rather than the nursery).