Operation Sandman, Night 12: "I let the darkening room drink up the evening, till rest, or the new rain lightly roused you awake. I asked if you heard the rain in your dream and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.”

Thursday night last week, Sweetie reported that Mr F woke up twice, going back to sleep in about 30 minutes each time.

Friday night, Mr F took until 10:30 to fall asleep, then woke at 4:45 the next morning, which as Sweetie pointed out, was a pretty good night. (It's always easier to be positive about someone else's night. She hadn't had to sit there for two hours and take an extra ride with him. But she was right.)

I mentioned to her that night that it seemed like now, he was nervous on my nights. Once or twice, on Sweetie's night, he's made me be the one to sit in there, but this night he seemed like he didn't feel safe.

Saturday, Sweetie got him in bed at 8 and at 8:15 he was asleep. He got up twice last night she said, for a short time each time.

So tonight, I was hopeful. We'd had a busy day: Park and splash park in the afternoon, and then because Mr Bunches wanted to go swimming we'd walked to the pool after dinner and swam, then gone for a family ride. Then I took Mr F for his own ride in the little car, and he was dozing off on the way home.

But when we got inside, he ran into our room and tried to get Sweetie to come in his room, pushing me out. Then before we could react to that he went downstairs to put on his shoes. We tried to talk him out of another ride, but he ran into the kitchen and pointed to the picture of Sweetie's car that we put up by the mystery picture.

(I will talk about the mystery picture another day.)

So I took him for another ride. He was all discombobulated, half-crying and half-panicky, as I got him into his safety harness. When we went downstairs, while I undid the chain on the garage door he grabbed a pair of old tennis shoes and carried them over to me.

"You don't need shoes," I told him gently.

He carried them with him to the car and as I buckled him into Sweetie's car for this ride, he tried to put the shoes on, getting upset when they wouldn't go on easily and trying to get me to help him.  "It's okay," I said.  "You don't need shoes." He calmed down and let me take them away from him.

We took another short ride, this time in Sweetie's car. When we got home he took my hand and walked with me upstairs, climbing into his bed. He's in there snoring now, at 10:19 p.m.