March 08, 2004 - 1:05 p.m.
More on this weekend later. Last night we might have found the root of Zachary's sleep problems.
He's afraid of his curtains.
It isn't surprising, when I really thought about it. His room lacks the ubiquitous miniblinds and I had hung up some of our old living room curtains in his room when we moved in - temporarily. They're long, white sheers that really only serve to blur the view into the room. They don't block light or do much else. And they're very easily moved by a ceiling fan generated breeze.
So think about it - you're 4 years old in a room all alone in the dark and a couple of pale, 84" tall, diaphanous things over by the windows are billowing into the room and toward your bed.
It would scare the hell out of me.
Well, I couldn't do much about it last night short of taking down the curtains. So I sat with Zack until he had calmed down and then went to his toybox and found his flashlight. I bought this for him while we were in Virginia Beach and he had a fascination with flashlights. It was ridiculously overpriced but it has an automatic shutoff when the handle is released so I figured the extra cost would eventually save us from buying batteries all the time when Zack left the standard flashlights on around the house.
When I returned later to check on him, he was fast asleep with the flashlight beside him. This morning he came downstairs with it. No predawn visits. No night terrors. He slept all night.
But I'm still going to replace those curtains.
