New friend, the flashlight

Jackson has a new past time.  Using a flashlight to read in his bed before falling asleep.  Any of you that know Jackson well know that he loves to read and that he attaches to things very easily.  Cole and I are always surprised at the small things that capture his attention.  Remember the matchbox car that looked like an old RV?  That thing went everywhere with us for months, including Mexico!  Another strange one was an advertisement flier in one of his DVDs.  I was cleaning out the DVD cabinet and had it in the trash pile when he spotted it and fell in love.  He called it his paper and read it, carried it around, played with it and slept with it off and on for a couple of days.  He would bring it to me every time it got a dog ear or a slight tear and ask me to fix it.  While a little more understandable, his interest in flash lights developed just as quickly.  The only problem is that we only had full size flashlights and he wasn't allowed to play with them.  Then a couple of weeks ago, Grammy and Pop sent a package and inside were two small Jackson sized flashlights.  Jackson was in love!

Recently, Jackson has been complaining about bedtime.  While its never been a problem before, lately we've heard a lot of- "I don't want to go to bed... I'm not tired... Its not dark enough for bedtime and on and on."  To solve the problem, we told him he could read books in his bed until he wanted to go to sleep.  Unfortunately, his turtle nightlight didn't provide enough light to read by.  Enter his new friend the flashlight.  A winning partnership was formed.  Now he goes to bed with a couple of books and spends time reading before falling asleep.  He knows that he has to turn off his flashlight and go to bed when he gets tired.  If he falls asleep with the light on the batteries will run down and it won't work anymore.  I am amazed at how responsible he is being with this new little privilege!  He usually reads for 15 or 20 minutes then turns off the flashlight, stacks his books to the side, grabs monkey and goes to sleep.  Its so cute!  It also gives me hope that when he drops his nap in the next year or so that we will have success with reading and rest time.