Last night, my son George couldn’t find his Lego. This was a potentially disastrous situation: George has to have certain things with him when he goes to bed, including a subset of his Mr. Potato Head collection and his stack of pink and yellow Legos. Gathering them up and putting into bed is part of the routine, and if anything goes missing, the entire routine – and subsequently everyone’s sleep – goes to hell in a handbasket.
So when the Lego went missing, the entire family embarked on a thorough, systematic search. Anyone looking at us would have thought we were trying to root out Saddam Hussein. The search included all rooms in the house, the backyard, the car, even the garage.
Eventually James found half of the Lego stack caught behind the treadmill. The other half had somehow ended up in the washing machine with some laundry. The crisis was averted, and before long, George was snuggled up in bed with his Lego and his Mr. Potato Heads.
It seems like a strange choice of sleeping companions. I’d always thought that kids liked teddy bears because they were soft and comfortable to hug, and for a long time, I assumed that George’s total lack of interest in plush toys was somehow related to his autism. Since then, I have realized that not all kids are into teddy bears, and that preference has nothing to do with autism or the lack thereof.
James went through a brief phase of having to sleep with every stuffed toy in the house. I would have to arrange them around him, and to an extent, on top of him, and I would always wonder if the furry friends would take up so much space that there would be no room left for the kid. It was an impractical arrangement because James is a restless sleeper, and one by one, the stuffed animals would be displaced. When I went to wake James up in the morning, his room would look like a plush toy factory had exploded in it.
It was at around this time that George started taking his Mr. Potato Heads to bed. He couldn’t possibly fit his whole collection in there, so he would pick out about ten of them, ensure that they had their arms and legs and other bits and pieces, and he would line them up neatly. There was a whole variety of them – plain old Mr. Potato Heads were mixed in with the likes of Darth Tater and Indiana Jones: Taters of the Lost Ark.
Taters of the Lost Ark was an interesting one: if you pushed down on his hat the Indiana Jones theme song would be played. This would happen when George rolled over onto this particular Potato Head in his sleep.
It’s a little disorienting to wake up at three in the morning to the sounds of the Indiana Jones theme song.
George’s choice of sleeping companions has not changed much since then, but James’ has. The stuffed toys have been relegated to a toy box, and James now sleeps with Finn McMissile (of Disney Cars fame), his Megatron (a member of his ever-expanding Transformers family) and a glow-in-the-dark skeleton.
From time to time, I will check on them after bedtime to find the pair of them in George’s bed with their respective toys. They’re hiding under the comforter with a flashlight on, playing companionably alongside each other. I pretend to reprimand them for not sleeping, and then I slip out of the room and let them play. Because really, who am I to interrupt their moments of brotherly togetherness?
Do your kids sleep with stuffed animals, or do they prefer other toys? How strict are you about separating play time from sleep time?
(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scazon/4207552952)
