Ada isn’t much for going to sleep when it is time. She doesn’t mind getting into bed, but she doesn’t stay there. Last week I came upstairs after doing school work in the basement to find her sitting next to the couch reading books in her little fort built by moving two kids’ chairs around her. When I asked her what she was doing (since it was ten o’clock and nobody else was up) she said, “I reading”.

The next night, while Dalen was working on her laptop on the couch, Ada was quietly sitting on the stairs. Dalen never noticed that she was there. When I was going upstairs to bed, I said, “What are you doing?” She just turned around and went upstairs with me behind her to tuck her back in.

She often gets out of bed to use the bathroom – sometimes three or four times in an hour after she is to go to sleep.

So last night Dalen was gone and I put the kids to bed at 8:45 and was going to stay upstairs to read for awhile. I told Ada that I didn’t want her to get out of bed, like I do every night. And I told her that I was going to be in bed, too, so I’ll hear her if she gets up. She never did get out of bed that I could hear. At about 11:00 I finished reading and went to use the bathroom. Whenever I get up I check on the kids. Liam doesn’t have to be wrapped up because he doesn’t move once he’s in bed. Helena is usually wrapped up well and can do so herself anyway. Ada is never wrapped up. She kicks her blankets off the bed or at least to the foot. So I go pick her blankets up and put them on her. As I’m doing so, I realize that she looks a bit different. She had drawn with an orange marker all over herself.

At least she didn’t get out of bed.