Dratted Energy

This kid. It's 10 PM, and we're probably looking at another hour before he's ready to lie down, and another half hour after that before he's nursed to sleep. Going to bed at 11:15ish is bad enough, but after this week, it'll spring forward until after midnight. I get that we stay home, so the shift shouldn't matter. But James works. He is having to go to sleep before Mal does, and he leaves the house before Mal wakes up, and often before I'm out of bed. Because I end up staying awake until 1 or so just to wind down.

And we *try* to wear him out. Tonight at sundown, I took him to the lake and he did this stuff.

But he's still running back and forth through the house. He's hurt himself once, which resulted in my throwing out the stool off of which he'd pulled the no-skid stickers about a year ago, and I'm justifiably concerned that there is the potential for further injury before bedtime happens.

In other news, Mal has honed in on something I'm sure I had no awareness of when I was three: personal musical themes. The first one he glommed on to, a long time ago, was Darth Vader (I know; it's the Imperial March, but it might as well be called "Darth Vader's Song"). But then, he focused on Finn McMissle's theme in Cars 2 (it's super James Bond-y).

Recently, he asked me what Mater's song was. I told him I didn't think Mater had a song, but the more I thought about it, I realized that whenever he's doing something particularly characteristic, there's a twangy banjo thing happening: "cow"-tipping, towing in a guy at high speed, showing off his backwards driving skills, etc.

And if Mal's playing Cars 2, racing a couple of cars, and I sing, "Run the race!" he'll correct me with, "No, that's from Cars 3."

Today, he hit the jackpot. James and Mal went to Little Land to play (actively, see above) but they were closing early for a birthday party, so instead, they went next door to a game shop. They came home with something I thought was either a microwave or a kegerator for James's office, but when he brought it in and set it down, I saw that it was this:

Yes, that is a store display for two out-of-production Lego sets. It has a bunch of circuitry at the bottom, and lights across the top. Since we don't really have anywhere to put it, we've pulled everything out. The pieces are glued together, so we can't take them apart (which is a blessing, honestly), but Mal has had fun playing with those this afternoon.

Incidentally, the Minifigs it came with would cost more than double what James paid for the whole thing, which was $25!

It's 10:35 and James just went to bed. Mal is still going strong.

One day last week, I was just over how tired and accident-prone and fussy he gets, and having watched the night before as he was acknowledging being tired, but his body would not wind down, I gave him .5 mg of melatonin. That worked; he was asleep within about 15 minutes. But his heart was beating so fast. Tachycardia is a potential side effect of melatonin, and since Mal seems prone to it, I cannot justify having him take it, even though I know his body is wanting to go to sleep and having issues.

The following night, though, Mal was outside several hours during the day. First, we went to the park with friends after story time at the library, then played out in the back yard in the afternoon. I don't know if it was a hold-over from the supplement, or having gotten so much sunlight, or a combination of both, but he was out cold at 9 o'clock, which is the earliest he's gone to sleep in months.

If anyone has any advice (other than "just make him go to bed and stay there," because that won't help the problem with his not physically being able to wind down), I'd love to hear what worked for your kids!