Supper Time Battles
So Isaac has been waking up in the middle of the night every night for the past two weeks, and that strain on Noelle is starting to show.

Now, I should say, in my defence, that I have offered on several occasions to get up and see to him should he wake up, but the truth is that Noelle just wakes up a hell of alot faster than I do, and she doesn't think to shove me and say "Go get 'im."

So we started thinking about what we might do to help him sleep through the night.

One theory was that because every supper for the last month or so has been a pitched battle between government forces and the "Eating a good supper resistance army", it might be contributing to a sense of unrest when he goes to bed.

So we made a conscious effort tonight to go with the flow, and let him eat what he wanted, and I tried to constantly praise when he was doing something good - eating nicely, eating his meat, and not just filling up on rice, etc. In the end, it was one of the most peaceful suppers we have had in ages.

SO then Noelle took him up to bed, and read him his story, told him the Oopik story, and then he asked her to stick around, while he started nattering on about Friendly Ghost, and how she (did I mention that his imaginary ghost friend is a girl ghost) had forgotten to ask her mom to stay with her that night.

Then it dawned on Noelle. If he lies here in the dark and composes stories to himself about ghosts, be they friendly or not, no wonder he is waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares.

So she stayed with him until he dozed off. I'll report later as to whether or not Noelle has to get up tonight, but sometimes the simplest answers are the right ones.