The melodrama, I mean.

Tage is very resistant to going to sleep in his bed by himself, and lately we’ve been taking a sort of tough-love approach to bedtime, with varying results.  Last night was one of the less successful efforts.  He spent close to an hour crying and wailing and, frankly, getting on my last nerve.

He lay alternately on his bed–stripped of its bedding–and on the floor, calling out plaintively, “Maaaa-ma … maaaa-ma … maaaa-ma.  I want maaaa-ma.  Mama, help me … help me, mama.”  When summoning me thus repeatedly did not work, he broke out the big guns.

“Mama,” he implored.  “I’m dying.”