Night Time Chats

Putting Noey to sleep every night is not something I look forward to. In fact, it is something I positively dread on some nights. I don’t know why he finds it so hard to go to sleep. Then again, every time I say that DD will look at me meaningfully and my “sleep-is-a-waste-of-time” genes feel guilty.

I appreciate him being asleep when finally he knocks off, but the process of getting him there is frequently long and arduous. There are the complaints — the many repeated “I’m not tired!” and “I don’t want to sleep!” protests. There are the excuses — he needs to drink water, he needs to pee, he needs to poop, he needs to read another book, he needs to check on Mei-Mei. There are the delaying tactics — when he reaches the end of the book and he refuses to let me read the words but instead keeps asking me questions about the pictures so that the story wouldn’t come to an end, when he refuses to let us clean his teeth and when he refuses to settle down for prayers because he knows it’s lights off thereafter.

When we finally settle into bed for the sleeping part, he would clamber all over me, or insist on holding my elbow, (or elbows, when he’s being particularly unreasonable) or squeeze himself right next to me such that the both of us are occupying a tiny strip of the large king-sized bed. (Yes, I still have to sleep with him every night. Ironically it’s Naomi who is sleeping in her own room all on her own. For now at least, till she catches on.) He’ll be there, flipping to and fro, occasionally yakking away while I play dumb and try not to answer him while praying that he would just fall asleep soon.

The ironic thing is that, in between the painful bits like cleaning his teeth, forcing him to sit still for prayer, dragging him into bed and the enforced bed rest and feeling up, Noey is actually his most entertaining and engaging self at this time. He makes the funniest statements, for one.

“I need to go outside and do a few things, and then I’ll come back,” he said the other day, importantly, while trying to get out of bed. “I need to do some work on the computer!” he protested when I (unsurprisingly) didn’t let him go.

This is also when he opens up the most about his day in school and what he did and learnt.

Some days I hear about his interactions with his classmates, like how “Noey tried to kiss Charis, and she said ‘Noah! Don’t do that!'”. Or how “Noey makes a funny sound and Samuel will laugh!”. Or “Today, Noey fight with Lincoln/Derrius/Samuel”. (Oh dear.)

Some days he starts spouting the Chinese he’s been learning in school. “足球 is football and 保龄球 is bowling ball and 篮球 is basketball!” he would declare. One day he told me that “一 is like that,” drawing a horizontal line in the air. “And 二!” he’d carry on, drawing 2 lines in the air. “三!” Three lines in the air. “And四!” Four lines in the air! Haha.

Earlier this week, he suddenly sat up and showed me the actions to his song item for the year-end concert. I think his class will be performing a dance to “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” from the looks of it. It was really cute, especially since he’s not one who would usually copy actions to a song.

Just earlier this week while I was chatting with Noey in bed, DD walked in, smiled and said, “You love it, right? Spending this time with him?” And I realised that for all the grief I feel about putting him to sleep, I do. I do love these moments of one-on-one time when I get to know what he’s doing when he’s away from me in school, and the thoughts that run through his head.

Now I just have to remember that every time I’m feeling angsty about putting him to sleep.