How Do You Clear Your Mind?

My son wasn’t able to settle in tonight after going to bed so I sat in the room with the children because when they’re not ready to sleep sometimes they feed off each other’s energy and don’t get to sleep for some time.

I’d read It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and Room On The Broom and we were having some very windy fall weather so I thought they would drift off to sleep easily.   My son wasn’t able to get settled and did this thing he does where he thumps his feet on the wall.   For a long time I didn’t know what the sound was exactly because I can hear it from downstairs but he wasn’t doing it when I was in the room.  

He said to me quietly that he’d seen something that was scary today.   He was getting lunch with dad and there was an old lady with a large and apparently black bump on her head.   I don’t know what exactly it was she had going on, but it wasn’t bandaged.   He didn’t like the look of it at all and he was thinking about it.   I told him she might have had her head get hit by something and she was healing and that older people sometimes took a longer time to heal. I told my son she probably didn’t like the way it looked either.

My son was quiet for a bit and then he said, “how do you clear your mind?”  He wanted to know how he could stop thinking about everything so he could fall asleep.   I said it was a very good question and different people had different ways of clearing their mind to fall asleep.  

I told him maybe he could think about a big dump truck that could come and take all the bad or sad or scary thoughts and take them away.   He asked if it could be good thoughts too?  I said it was up to him.   I said after the dump truck was gone maybe the only thing that was left was a soft, fluffy pillow and a warm blanket on a comfortable mattress.  

I don’t know if it worked because I left the room shortly after that.   I know it’s tough to have a thought in your head you can’t get rid of that keeps you awake and won’t let your mind rest.

The Big Boy Update:  My son asked me tonight after we’d turned the lights off to go to bed, “what are eyes made of?” (He had a spot that was bothering him just inside the bridge of his nose where some skin was scraped.)   I tried to come up with words he could understand and told him that eyes were made of cells and fluids and tissue.   He sat up in bed and said, “wait, our eyes are made out of toilet paper?!”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has worn the skin off her fingers.   They’re peeling and she’s not happy about it.   This is from climbing the door frames of course.   I told her she needs to stop and take a break tonight as I was clipping some of the excess skin.   She said in a sad voice, “but I don’t even know I’m doing it.”   I think it’s true, it’s just an integral part of everything she does around the house now.   We might need an intervention but I really don’t know how to block off all the door frames in the house or the rest of us won’t be able to get around.