"What hath night to do with sleep?"

--John Milton.

Parenting Zadie is... difficult. I mean, she's always been brilliant and creative and funny and curious and all the things you hope your kid will be. But she's also -- difficult. She's passionate, emotional, mean, kinetic, energetic, and so active. Oh, so active. I have frequently pushed aside the nagging thought that she could be hyperactive, clinically speaking, not hyperbolically. In toddler song-time, twenty kids would sit in their parents' laps, and one would do laps around the Clunie center. In library lap-sit story time, fifteen kids would listen to the story and one would run for the stairs. In baby-signs, toddler Spanish class, ballet, soccer, hip-hop, and pre-school, if you wanted to find my kid, the easiest way would be to look for the blur running away. She would want to do things like ballet, but she just couldn't sit still, so she would wiggle and run and change places and roll around and poke and hug and grab the other kids. It was exhausting.

And the exhaustion has always been exacerbated by the fact that we don't sleep very well in this house. She has had a few two-week phases in her lifetime where she didn't wake up at night, but it was rare. She kicks and turns and throws off the covers and yells "EMM! OH! EMM!" at 1am and 2am and 3 am, and sometimes by 4:30 we'd give up. Getting her to sleep at night often included taking the things away that she had gotten out to play with, reminding her to lie down and close her eyes, reminding her to stop singing and talking to herself, and assuring her that she didn't need another glass of water.

And then we would go places and she'd run for the hills and I'd stop my conversation with some kindly old gentleman so that I could run after her, bags and coats trailing after me, and they would always say with some sympathy, "Well, at least she'll be tired tonight!" And I'd smile my thanks, but it wasn't true. She never was.

We had a soothing bedtime routine, blackout curtains, a white noise machine. And the articles I read for advice always started by assuming we were the Honey Boo Boo family. "Maybe you should consider," they'd helpfully say, "not giving them caffeine in the evening." Oh, gee, maybe I should stop putting Red Bull in her dinner glass. For fuck's sake.

And besides the hyperactivity, she was really just a pain in the ass sometimes. She would hit. She would whine or grunt instead of asking for what she needed. She would say how much she hated everything. She called us names. She spat. She would accuse us of Doing Things Wrong. Again, the articles would advise things like, "Consider talking to your child about how she is feeling. If you use physical punishment, try time-outs." I read books: Setting Limits with your Strong-Willed Child. Positive Discipline. Positive Discipline for Pre-schoolers.

Finally my mom, who spends nine hours a day with her, said that she thought Zadie wasn't getting enough sleep. I wasn't entirely convinced -- after all, if she was tired, wouldn't she just sleep more? And we had done nearly everything in our power to help her sleep and it hadn't worked.

I tried one more thing. She's afraid of monsters and the dark, so she generally sleeps with a lamp on. I was convinced it was partly to blame for her staying awake when she woke in the night, so we convinced her to try sleeping without the light. We said it would be a seven-day test, and then we could re-evaluate. It would be like SCIENCE. She loves science, so she agreed. We tried it for two nights, and she did get more sleep and was in a bit better mood, but on Friday morning, Mom mentioned the sleep issue again, saying that kids Zadie's age are supposed to get 11 hours a night. Zadie typically got 9 or less.

I emailed the doctor. She recommended all the things we'd already tried, plus one: melatonin. I had run across that suggestion, too, but mostly for autistic kids. And when I looked it up, the first several reports were of that hysterical "ARE PARENTS DRUGGING THEIR KIDS?!" variety. But I found some good scientific articles that said it wasn't really a drug, just a hormone that some people don't make enough of, that there are no side effects, and that all it does is regulate your sleep cycle.

We bought some and tried it Friday night. She NEVER says she's tired. Never. But she did that night. She went to sleep easily and slept all night long, eleven hours. That morning, we went to get my car serviced and waited at a Starbucks. She sat on my lap for nearly the whole 90 minutes without complaining once. Both (the lap snuggles and the pleasant attitude) were unusual. I really enjoyed the snuggles. All the rest of the day she used pleasant speaking tones, she listened, she readily agreed to my suggestions. She even made me lunch. Wait, let me say that again: she made me lunch.

It was such a perfect day that at the end of it, I was a little sad. I know that's hard to explain, but those days are so rare that I thought it was going to be a long time before I saw another. That night, she fell asleep early, while Sweetie was still reading to her. She slept for only 10 1/4 hours, and we had a good day. Not the perfect listener, but she tried hard, was sweet and pleasant, and really seemed like she wanted to do well. If I had to ask her something twice, I might say "Oh darn, I know you can be a listener. Don't you want to be today?" And she would try.

We've had two more days now, and today at Grandma's, she apparently told them she loves them and that they're the best grandparents ever. Mom said she wanted to rest her eyes, so Zadie did several things quietly so as not to disturb her, then covered her with blankets and patted her. I teared up when I heard that, because her usual reaction would be to scream in Mom's ear, jump up and down on the bed, and take a flying leap onto her abdomen. Well, I'm extrapolating based on what she usually does to me and her dad.

The funny thing is, in the evening, she now wants to cuddle and she complains of feeling tired starting at about 6:45. She's so much more calm, body-wise, and so much more gentle and cuddly. One study I read said that kids who are sleep-deprived sometimes make up for the fact that they're so tired by trying to move their bodies constantly. It sounds counter-intuitive, but what do I do when I'm driving and feeling over-tired? Shake my head around, stretch my shoulders, wiggle my jaw... I guess it makes sense.

It's going to sound bad when I say this, but Zadie, for the last four days, has been acting a lot more like a normal child. One who gets a little fussy for a while after lunch, and who gets emotional at bedtime. And she's not any less brilliant and creative. But she's a lot more sweet and loving. Tonight as I kissed her goodnight, she said, "I love you ALL the numbers plus a googolplex plus infinity." And then she conked out.

If we were drugging her to make her change her personality, I would feel bad about it. If we were suppressing some essential part of her character to make our lives easier, this would weigh heavily on my conscience. But the little chick just doesn't make enough melatonin on her own. She needs this naturally-occuring hormone to help her sleep, so we're going to give it to her, just as we'd give her insulin if she didn't make enough of that. And the best part of all of it is that SHE seems a lot happier. It's almost like all the extra hugs and love and sweet words are her way of saying thank you.