What is it about?

The rollercoaster adventures of parenting three kids, dealing with disability and mental health - and discussing disability discrimination and how to tackle it.

Friday 24 August 2007

His Own Bedroom

For weeks now, Possum has been wanting to have his own room back. You see in the old house, he used to sleep in his own room. Then his older brother, Mister Determined, went through one of those phases kids go through, where he had lots of bad dreams. Our kids don't watch much TV (some ABC kids and selected DVDs only) so they don't have a big "stock" of scary images. But Mr. Determined used to dream about a lady coming into his room screaming, so I think it's just a developmental stage kids go through. But enough DIY psychology from me for now.

The point is that we put the two boys in the same room to get that extra sense of security. It seemed to help – Mr. Determined knew that Possum was there, and if he had a bad dream, he would come and get us (you know, as if we wouldn't hear him, but that's not the point). They got used to being together, and it is remarkable how they manage to sleep through each other's noise. Possum gets these dreams where he babbles in an incomprehensible language and gets himself quite worked up. He does not seem to be fully awake, and only stops when we take him out of the bed and he wakes up. His brother does not wake up even by one of those episodes!

Still, Possum must have retained some memory of his own room, because he kept asking about it. It seemed logical that he'd get his own room in the new house, so that was sorted. Except that we decided they should sleep together the first few nights, to get used to being in a new house.

Last night, Mister Determined decided that he wanted to sleep in his own room – we're all having a bit of a cold, and Possum was snoring too loudly for Mr. Determined's liking, so he wanted to boot him out. Well, that was ok with us, if they were ready, so were we. Possum wanted this for a while now, and Mr. D, was the one holding things back. And here we were, as always being surprised by our kids, Mr. D. actually being the one asking to go solo. And guess what? Possum didn’t want to move out. He hollered and screamed, and did absolutely not want his own room. Turned out he was frightened. So, together in the room they sleep. For now.

No comments: