I can't sleep without my BLANKIE!

Some of my children have a hard time going to sleep at night. Multiple trips out to the family room to let me know of the multiple ills that have beset them in the last few minutes since they entered their bedroom for bed is not uncommon. After one such night, Katie came out. Again. "Mom, I can't find my blankie! I can't go to sleep without my BLANKIE!"

Disinterested and fairly annoyed at this point I respond, "Yes, actually, it is possible to sleep without your blankie as I have found it out here many times while you are asleep. Turn around and go to sleep."

Think of a siren with her response, "But I NEED my BLANKIE! I CAN'T sleep without my BLANKIE!" She quickly goes into the living room but doesn't get to far as the lights are off and she is afraid of the dark. "I can't SEE it. I don't know WHERE my BLANKIE is!"

More annoyed at this point as her bed time was near a half an hour ago, "Katie, if you don't go to sleep right now I will give you a job (punishment that gets my house clean)".

From her bedroom she is wailing dramatically the mentioned lines about her blankie...incessantly. Within a minute, Christian comes around the corner, armed with his plug-in flashlight and a serious face says, "Mom, she needs her blanket, she can't go to sleep without it". He marches right into the living room, grabs her blanket and on the return trip states, "I got it for her Mom". Katie giggles like a girl that got her way and Christian has been a little man and saved her day. It warmed the cockles of my heart. (I don't think cockles are a good thing to have in a heart, but that night, it probably would have been apt.)