Is he serious?

Last night we had to go pick up Joe's truck from being fixed at Sears around 8. (Score: truck - 3, Joe - 0. We have managed to "invest" about $3K in the lovely thing in the last 3 days, but that story could be an entire blog in itself, especially coupled with the stories concerning the money we have "invested" in paying off our tickets/court fees/traffic lawyer recently. But I digress....) We put Sam in his pjs just in case he fell asleep on the way home, which he did. I transferred him into bed without him waking up.......until 1 AM. I heard him moving around but tried to ignore it for a while. When he began yelling for me, I decided I had better check things out. I found him standing by his door with the lights on.

"Mom, where's my animals?" (Side note: He usually has an assortment of about 20 stuffed animals strewn around his bed, but I had actually picked up his room earlier in the day for the first time in about a month and had placed them all neatly in a basket on the floor. Apparently, he could sense they were missing in his sleep.)

"Here. Now go back to bed." I dumped the basket on his bed to restore them to their "places."

"Mom - we forgot to read 2 books." (Another side note: We always read 2 books before bed.That is, unless he happens to be already asleep when it is time for bed. Again - something that apparently he could sense was missing while sleeping.) He looks up at me expectantly. Was he seriously thinking I was going to read him 2 books at 1 AM?

"It's dark. I am not reading 2 books. Go to sleep."

I felt victorious until he woke up again a half an hour later. I sent Joe in, which I knew would just prompt hysterical screaming for me, but I could not get myself out of bed, due to the Tylenol PM I took to fall asleep so that I would not lay awake making lists in my head about China all night long. (Wow - that was an impressive run-on sentence. You'll have to excuse me. Blogging does not bring out the best in my language skills. Any fellow Buckle-Downers are probably embarrassed, but hey, I never claimed to be an English major!)

Joe attempted to quell the screaming. He lost. Sam was in bed with us - head in my armpit, feet in Joe's face - for the rest of the night. Score: Sam - 1, Jane and Joe - 0.